Thursday, April 28, 2022

The Muddle-Headed Wombat

 

Image credit: Amazon.com

So I am well and truly on a little bit of an Australian children’s classics binge at the moment, having just closed the cover on another sweet and delightfully illustrated collection of tales: Ruth Park’s The Muddle-Headed Wombat.

In this book of four adventures we are introduced to a lonely muddled-headed wombat that makes best friends with a dainty little mouse and a conceited tabby cat. Together they go on many adventures, including going to school, on holiday at the seaside, and enduring a great thunderstorm while stranded in a treehouse. A lot of mistakes, good intentions, and friendly resolutions ensue, making this a very sweet little book with good little lessons for its young audience. 

Originally, Wombat and his friends Mouse and Tabby Cat began their careers on a daily ABC children’s radio show. Indeed the stories, similar to those of the gum nut babies Snugglepot and Cuddlepie, lend themselves to oral storytelling, but transcribed into the written word, the characters and the adventures they go on do not lose any of their integrity or charisma that inspires emotional attachment from the readers. 

Ruth Park writes simply for an audience on the much younger side, however there is still something about these adorable characters and the way they are fleshed out that allows adults to also enjoy their adventures. Wombat’s adorable mispronunciations as well as silliness and sweet sincerity remind us of Winnie the Pooh and I particularly enjoyed the toying with gender pronouns that Park engages when talking about Mouse. Mouse is referred to as ‘it’ all the time aside from once where Park employs the adjective ‘ladylike’. However, Mouse’s sex is never actually revealed and so there’s a really lovely awareness of the fluidity of gender roles at play here, which was surprising in stories that were around during the 1960s.

Image credit: Wikipedia

As the narratives and characters were fleshed out a lot better than Snugglepot and Cuddlepie, I definitely enjoyed this book better. It’s sweet, fun, and emotionally enthralling with good morals in behaviour being at the centre of its tales. 

Author: Ruth Park, 1962, 1964 & 1965

Illustrator: Noela Young

Published: Combined edition published by Angus & Robertson Publisher Australia, 1979

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