FINDING HOME

The creators of the award-winning penguin trek, A Mother’s Journey (2005), now trace the odyssey of a koala parent with the same attention to detail and broadly appealing illustrations. Subsisting solely on the leaves of eucalyptus (did you know that there are different kinds?), a New South Wales koala and her large joey are forced to search for a new feeding ground after a bush fire leaves all the trees stripped. The trip takes them into human territory. Punctuated by irresistible close-ups of the mother’s face, Marks’s impressionistic watercolors follow the two as they weather a dog’s attack, then resolutely try to ignore the gathering crowds of curious people that trail along. Ultimately, having crossed a highway on which traffic has been stopped (the whole episode is loosely based on a true story), the koalas find a new patch of forest. Markle tells the tale in measured, sensitive, carefully non-anthropomorphic prose. Capped by an explanatory afterword, extra koala facts and several recommended print and web resources, this makes another fine choice for budding naturalists to read alone or aloud. (Picture book/nonfiction. 6-8)