During the fire season in Australia, a wombat allows its underground shelter to become a place of refuge for other vulnerable animals in need. Discusses Australia's devastating 2019-2020 fire season, in which many animals lost their lives or their habitats.

Why would a wombat be registered for war? It's 1965, and an old Tattersalls barrel starts rolling marbles to randomly conscript young Australian men to fight in the war in Vietnam. Melbourne housewife Jean McLean is outraged, as are her artist friends Clif and Marlene Pugh, who live in the country with their wombat, Hooper. Determined to wreck the system, Jean forms the Save Our Sons movement's Victorian branch, and she and her supporters take to the streets to protest. Meanwhile, in the small country town of Katunga, Bill Cantwell joins the Australian Army, and in Saigon, young Mai Ho is writing letters to South Vietnamese soldiers from her school desk. And when Hooper's call-up papers arrive, he mysteriously goes underground... As these stories intersect in unexpected ways and destinies entwine, a new world gradually emerges - a world in which bridges of understanding make more sense than war. This stunning graphic novel, full of empathy, courage and resistance, is based on true events. 'Every drawing reflects a Vietnamese history era in which I grew up and witnessed the war. I cannot thank you enough for this memory.' MAI HO 'I wish I had this growing up. It's incredibly informative. Stories like this are severely lacking, and for an Australian audience, I think it will be revelatory.' MATT HUYNH

Read and find out the science behind a pandemic and how to stay safe in this illustrated, informative nonfiction picture book. Everybody gets sick now and then—maybe with a runny nose or a sore throat. But sometimes, a lot of people get sick at once. If a disease spreads all over the world, that’s a pandemic. The current COVID-19 pandemic has upended the lives of kids across the world and has caused fear and confusion as people in charge have given conflicting orders. Read to discover the answers to some of your biggest questions, including: What is a pandemic? How are they created and spread? Has anything like this ever happened before? What is a coronavirus? What can we do to stay safe and healthy? While pandemics are rare, several have happened throughout the world’s history, such as the bubonic plague and smallpox, and our scientists have observed and learned some important lessons, such as the importance of vaccines. This Level 2 Let’s-Read-and-Find-Out shares important facts about past and current pandemics, taking readers from the origin of the word “quarantine” and through history’s many pandemics, to milestones such as the first vaccine that helped end smallpox. This book also comes with a handwashing diagram, a glossary, and a timeline of past pandemics and their impact on the world. This is a clear and appealing science book for early elementary age kids, both at home and in the classroom. It's a Level 2 Let's-Read-and-Find-Out, which means the book explores more challenging concepts for children in the primary grades. The 100+ titles in this leading nonfiction series are: hands-on and visual acclaimed and trusted great for classrooms Top 10 reasons to love LRFOs: Entertain and educate at the same time Have appealing, child-centered topics Developmentally appropriate for emerging readers Focused; answering questions instead of using survey approach Employ engaging picture book quality illustrations Use simple charts and graphics to improve visual literacy skills Feature hands-on activities to engage young scientists Meet national science education standards Written/illustrated by award-winning authors/illustrators & vetted by an expert in the field Over 130 titles in print, meeting a wide range of kids' scientific interests Books in this series support the Common Core Learning Standards, Next Generation Science Standards, and the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) standards. Let's-Read-and-Find-Out is the winner of the American Association for the Advancement of Science/Subaru Science Books & Films Prize for Outstanding Science Series.

Learn all about the Australian “bulldozer of the bush” in a fascinating introduction to the wombat. Wombats may look soft and cuddly, but they are determined and tough, with sharp teeth that never stop growing, limbs that they use to shovel dirt like bulldozers, and bony bottoms they use to defend their burrows. They can live for years without drinking water, getting all of their moisture from the plants they eat—and they deposit their cube-shaped poop on rocks or stumps as a warning to other wombats. Follow one of these powerful marsupials through a suspenseful day in Christopher Cheng’s engaging narration, paired with endearing illustrations by Liz Duthie and interspersed with intriguing facts. An endnote provides additional information about wombats for readers curious to learn more.

As the sun sets over an Australian grassland, a hungry wombat leaves its burrow to spend the cool night looking for plants to eat. When morning comes, the wombat will waddle back to its home and spend the hot daytime hours sleeping in its protected, underground bedroom. In Wombat’s Burrow, kids will explore the world of these burrowing marsupials through clear text and large, full-color photos. Age-appropriate activities, such as describing a wombat to a friend, and critical-thinking questions give readers a chance to gain insights beyond the facts and figures. Fun information, such as the fact that the tunnels in the wombat’s burrow can be wide enough for a person to crawl through, is sure to delight young readers.

Wednesday, September 5, 1973: The first day of Karl Shoemaker's senior year in stifling Lightsburg, Ohio. For years, Karl's been part of what he calls "the Madman Underground" - a group of kids forced (for no apparent reason) to attend group therapy during school hours. Karl has decided that senior year is going to be different. He is going to get out of the Madman Underground for good. He is going to act - and be - Normal. But Normal, of course, is relative. Karl has five after-school jobs, one dead father, one seriously unhinged drunk mother . . . and a huge attitude. Welcome to a gritty, uncensored rollercoaster ride, narrated by the singular Karl Shoemaker.

A delightful and entertaining peek into the life of one very busy wombat!Ages: 3-7 MondayMorning: Slept.Afternoon: Slept.Evening: Ate.Scratched.Night: Ate.A typical day. Don't be fooled. this wombat leads a very busy and demanding life. She wrestles unknown creatures, runs her own digging business, and most difficult of all - trains her humans. She teaches them when she would like carrots, when she would like oats and when she would like both at the same time. But these humans are slow learners.Find out how one wombat - between scratching, sleeping and eating - manages to fit the difficult job of training humans into her busy schedule.

Kata, a ninja, embarks on her first solo mission, for which she must enter a warlord's castle and make sure that a certain sleeping occupant never awakens. But then Kata discovers that her target is just a young boy (and that her new accomplice is that boy's slightly older sister), and suddenly her mission is much more complicated than she bargained for. Faced with taking someone's life or confronting the dire consequences of failure in her mission, Kata must make a hard choice, one that leads her into a more dangerous battle than she ever expected. In this action-packed coming-of-age novel, Kata discovers that while a ninja must always act alone, humanity requires that you accept the trust and friendship of others.

Illustrations and text celebrate the colors brown and black, demonstrating the many positive assocations with these two colors.

'Wombat' is a cartoon strip from Vancouver artist Rod Filbrandt and the precursor to his long-lived and much loved strip, 'Dry Shave'. In 'Wombat: The Collected Comic Strip' the reader witnesses the development of a cartoon strip and the characters that fill its frames, from its nascent, raw stages, when it first ran in Discorder-a UBC Campus paper- in the late 1980s, on through numerous growth spurts, to the amazingly polished strides of the early 1990s, and finally to its sad and noirish end in 1994. One can easily see where the artist is going with his extensive cast of louts, drunkards, grifters, drifters, and wannabes of every stripe. You can almost smell the cast of 'Dry Shave' through the blue smoke and beer mist."In the mid-'90s underground, there was a hard-drinking, heavy-smoking private eye who went on seedy, hallucinatory journeys in black-and-white - navigating hellish terrains and nastier people. It was written and drawn by Vancouver cartoonist Rod Filbrandt, and the character was named Wombat. An incredibly stylish and unique series ..." - Fast Forward Weekly (Calgary)"Running from the mid '80s until 1994, 'Wombat' showcased Rod Filbrandt's wry and jaded views on modern society and his incredible growth and progression as a cartoonist. ... a great representation of the formative years of one of the best cartoonists this country has produced." - Broken Pencil