Tag Archives: Glen Singleton

Santa Koala by Colin Buchanan and Glen Singleton

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IMG_3007Santa Koala by Colin Buchanan and illustrated by Glen Singleton, paperback picture book, first published by Scholastic Australia in 2010, this edition published in 2014.

Santa Koala is a Christmas song set to the tune of Waltzing Matilda. While Santa sleeps by the billabong, Koala decides to help out by delivering all of the presents for him. Along with his Australian animal friends, Koala sets off to do Santa’s job, what could possibly go wrong?

I found Santa Koala to be an amusing book. I especially liked the ending, very funny! It really is best sung, so get out your awesomest singing voice and go for it!! My kids loved the singing, even though they were totally out of tune. They also asked me to sing it while they followed the pictures.

Santa Koala is a bit of Aussie Christmas fun best suited for younger children, though I think all ages could do with a bit of upbeat Christmas singing at this time of year!

 

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Big Book of Aussie Dinosaurs by Kel Richards and Glen Singleton

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IMG_1489Big Book of Aussie Dinosaurs by Kel Richards and illustrated by Glen Singleton, hardback non-fiction, 25 pages, published by Scholastic Australia in 2014.

Over the years we have read many dinosaur books, but I think this is the first one exclusively about Australian dinosaurs. It is a clear and simple introduction to this topic, suitable for preschoolers and lower primary school children. It contains facts about each dinosaur, with quirky illustrations on every page. My preschooler liked the carnivores running around with knives and forks. Her favourite dinosaur is Minmi, and she liked that a carnivore’s knife and fork were drawn crumpled from trying to penetrate her hard bony plates.

There is a glossary of Australian dinosaurs at the back of the book with a picture, the full name, phonetic pronunciation and the meaning of the dinosaur’s name. We tried saying all of the names aloud, some of them were quite difficult!

Prefect for all small dinosaur lovers, Big Book of Aussie Dinosaurs deserves a place in any dinosaur book collection!