animal ark read-a-thon (books 11-18)
The other day, my mom was telling me about how she had every copy of the entire Sweet Valley series: Twins, Junior High, High, Senior Year, and University and I remember the crates with these paperbacks very well since they took up an entire corner of my bedroom. She claims that I adored the Twins series and checked out as soon as they went to Junior High, but I honestly don’t remember anything about these books from my childhood; I’m fairly confident that my mom enjoyed reading them to me more than I retained anything about them. This isn’t a diss against Francine Pascal either; I’m actively reading the graphic novel adaptations and one of my favorite podcasts, Sweet Valley Diaries, features Marissa Flaxbart discussing every book in the high school series with a guest. But when I think about serialized chapter books from my youth, I mostly remember their physical presence and not their content.
In reading a bigger batch of Animal Ark books for the past couple of months, I’m realizing that’s the same even for books that I know I read. The plots are starting to blur into one another, which is not helped by the antagonist often rehashing the same schemes to buy up land, encroach on the land of animals, and generally act like a jerk. On the one hand, there’s a comfort to routine storytelling that I’m sure would be helpful for those still learning how to read and, from what I understand, might also be an additional aid to neurodivergent readers in particular. But as an adult reader returning to Welford, I am finding that I am more engaged with some stories than others.
11. Bunnies in the Bathroom by Jenny Oldfield
It’s Easter in Welford as Mandy and James go shopping for carved chocolate animals as presents for their neighbors at Cecil’s Confectionery. On their way out, they spot a new store, Pets’ Parlour, across the street featuring two baby bunnies in the window (who she immediately names Button and Barney.) It’s a cheery opening until they arrive back in town and observe Julian Hardy introduce his son, John, to a woman named Sara… his new fiance. Mandy has mixed feelings about observing the tense encounter because she’s always known John to be “annoyingly polite and neat,” but he looks he clearly desires a major distraction from his home life. He throws himself into a school project about animals and, when Mandy suggests rabbits as a subject, he becomes an expert from his studies and spends more time at Lydia’s High Cross farm observing the burrows and foraging, sketching and taking photos, than he does at home.
One of my favorite plot points in the book is that people keep confusing James and John since they’re so accustomed to seeing Mandy with her best friend; it’s not helped that, as Mandy gets to know John’s budding fascination with animals better, even suggesting to him that he might be a good wildlife artist, it feels like there’s a budding rivalry for her attention. The series so far hasn’t seriously delved into the possibility of school crushes, and I don’t recall them ever earnestly going in that direction, but there have certainly been moments when James blushes in Mandy’s company, particularly when receiving compliments, and he becomes notably irritable when Mandy turns down his request to play tennis in favor of helping John. When she cancels on their rain check, and James storms off, Jean has a heart-to-heart with Mandy about friendship and promises, leading her to choose tennis after all. The tension between the eases and James becomes more involved in her efforts to try and help John.
To her credit, Mandy wasn’t ignoring James with any ill intention; she was worried about John’s fractured relationship with his father and future step-mom and wanted to help in whatever way she can. He rebuffs Sara’s efforts to compliment his drawings, impulsively buys the baby rabbits at the pet shop before obtaining permission, and lashes out when he’s told that he cannot keep them due to being away at school for a significant portion of the year. Sara works hard to convince Julian that he is being too hard on his son and he ends up folding. Not knowing the good news, John throws himself into danger at High Cross when some men start shooting at the rabbit warrens under orders from, you guessed it, Sam Western. Further conflict ensues when there’s a mix-up at the pet shop and the bunnies are sold a second time to an buyer who turns out to by the Parker-Smythe family. All is well by the end, of course, when Lydia convinces the boys and Western that the “public property” they were shooting on was actually part of her grandfather’s land and that she intends to keep it as a nature preserve and Imogen, despite normally being a bit bratty, agrees to share her bunnies with John so that they live with her whenever he is out of town for school.
That’s a lot of conflict condensed down into a short summary and I think that’s one of the weaker elements of the book because it’s trying to juggle both information about the wild rabbits that John has been studying and now protecting as well as the domestic rabbits that represent the conflict with his parents. I see what they were going for, but it felt like a lot all at once in the final third of the book.
12. Donkey on the Doorstep by Jenny Oldfield
There’s a dramatic opening where Dr. Adam is administering antihistamines to a very sick horse, Ivanhoe, while a donkey, Dorian, throws a tantrum. He makes a full recovery, but Mandy is aghast by something else: Mr. Greenaway is planning to sell the horse since his daughter, Andi, will be focused on school and tennis since, with extra coaching, her skills might be competitively good, which means Dorian must go, too. It’s clear throughout the book that Andi still very much loves her animals, but they can’t feasibly bring them to the city, making Mandy’s primary mission to find him a new home. This is made more complicated throughout the book because Dorian keeps escaping his paddock, eventually frustrating Mr. Greenaway so much that he announces that he’ll be sent to a slaughterhouse.
Meanwhile, there’s a subplot where a family of travelers arrive in their caravan much to the chagrin of neighborhood fuddy duddies Mrs. Platt and Mrs. Ponsonby. Mandy has a completely different impression of the newcomers—Jude Sommers, his wife, Rowan, and their kids, Jason and Skye. They’re nothing but pleasant, even to Dorian, but they decide to head out of town sensing that they aren’t wanted. This parallels the way that Dorian is rejected for being a menace as he pops up at various people’s homes: the caravan, Lilac Cottage with the grandparents, the Spry Sister’s conservatory, and the tennis court - which is about the last straw for Mr. Greenaway. The unwanted people and animal are actually far more compassionate and helpful than the people who try to chase them out of town.
After Mandy meddles a bit too hard, Dorian and Andi both go missing leading to a big search for their whereabouts. The Somers inform them what direction the two went, but after hours of searching they haven’t had luck. Eventually, James and Mandy find Dorian clearly trying to lead them somewhere: a hole Andi fell down and was wedged in with a broken arm. They call for an ambulance and pull her up with rope and combined strength (two kids and a donkey), but Dorian goes missing in the hullabaloo. Turns out, he found his way back to the Somers caravan and, when well enough, marches back to the former Greenaway farm where the new boy who has moved in convinces his parents to buy the donkey. Honestly, the funniest way to try and wrap up a very dramatic story. The Somers also find a new place for themselves too by taking over the gardening and cleaning for the Spry Sisters so long as they can still head off now and then to feed their wanderlust hearts.
I found this book to be a mixed bag. Mr. Greenaway was pretty frustrating and the town all turning against Dorian felt like a rehashing of what we went through with Houdini the goat. Throughout the book, there’s this weird Mr. Ed situation where the donkey will bray or snicker and Mandy will imagine what he is communicating; I’m sure this would be funnier for a young reader, but it got old pretty quickly for me. It also felt unbelievable what Mandy and James are able to get away with on their own, like trying to smuggle Dorian to a donkey retirement home (which doesn’t work because he ran away) and Andi riding him very far out of town on her own in the span of a day followed by the kids rescuing her from the ditch. It’s not so much that I’m expecting realism in this little series, but it did feel like this book pushed the stakes in a way that didn’t work for me.
13. Hamsters in a Handbasket by Jenny Oldfield
This book has, by far, the pettiest plot. It all starts on the penultimate day of the semester before summer holiday when Miss Temple does a lottery to choose who will look after Henry VIII, the class hamster. When James wins the drawing, and multiple kids, including Vicki, throw a tantrum saying that it must have been rigged; Miss Temple tells them to be good sports, but, spoiler, that does not happen. The core conflict in the book is twofold: (1) Sam Western has rallied people in opposition of Burt Burnley’s plan to set up a Riverside Trailer Park offering camp activities to kids on vacation despite him already seeking formal approval from the county; and (2) the demonization of the vacationing children that leads to a little girl running away and a hamster going missing following harassment local kids felt emboldened to employ based on how the adults were talking about the outsiders.
There are multiple smaller things that frustrated me, such as the way that Henry’s diet plan was referenced by the kids; obviously as a class hamster fed human food constantly between the bars of his cage throughout the school year, he’s not the fittest he could be, but reading James talk about calorie counting was a step too far for me and showed the influence of diet culture trickling from adults onto children. Even worse was the way that protest was framed in the book. Obviously, I disagree with Western and all of the towns people who decide to back him (looking at you, Ponsonby); however, the broadly negative strokes against protests as inherently unruly and bad is troubling - especially given the ongoing situation in Los Angeles unfolding as I write this. To be clear, Western (who accuses Burnley of trying to “line his pockets” despite him not accepting money for either use of the land or the summer camp) and Ponsonby (spouting classist vitriol about trailers being an eye sore) are in the wrong here, which is reinforced by the newspaper running an article in favor of upholding the counsel’s approval. However, it’s the way protest and law are framed that bothers me since they jump so quickly to the threat of calling the police.
Unlike everyone else, Mandy and James have no issues with the new kids, taking an especial liking to the very shy Leanne who loves animals but cannot keep one at home. There are reports all over town about gates being left open, flower gardens being destroyed, and Minister Hadcroft even has to take his cat into surgery for a fractured tail. The protagonist overhear Leanne sobbing outside and witness Vicki and Justin lose hold of their poodle’s leash and parrot laughter claiming that the girl is part of “a bunch of vandals.” There’s a petition circulating from Imogen’s mom to remove the trailers, citing all the recent incidents. While investigating the incidents to gather evidence to prove their innocence of the kids, Imogen confesses that she witnessed a dog, specifically a poodle, break the pots and harassing the cats. So it’s actually local kids causing mischief to help chase the newcomers away.
Events spiral cartoonishly from here as they confront Vicki for kidnapping Henry because she was jealous from not getting chosen to watch after him and Justin concocting increasingly more heinous plans (vandalism, laughing at Leanne and blaming everything on her, dumping Henry in a hedge so he wouldn’t be caught having stolen him.) Equally bizarre is how everyone switches gears from searching for Leanne, who has also gone missing, to looking for Henry; they find him eating a bunch of food in one of the trailers, and then he scuttles under a doorway leading to Leanne. There’s a big barbecue celebrating at the end and a school hamster, Elizabeth I, for Leanne’s school, but I think everything is forgiven far too easily. The adults treated the children with so much suspicion that their children started acting out. Just like Western spread misinformation about Burnsides intentions, the children reinforced a false narrative about who was actually destroying property and harming animals. Low point in the series for me.
14. Goose on the Loose by Helen Magee
Unfortunately, my experience with this book, while less frustrating overall, wasn’t that fun either. Tom Hapwell’s daughter, Penny Hapwell, is going out of town with her mom and convinces Mandy to look after her troublemaker of a pet goose, Gussie, over the weekend; though Mandy is able to secure rare permission from her parents to bring her round to Animal Ark, they hit a major roadblock when she is missing from the farm. Turns out there was a mix-up with the raffle prizes at the church charity and Mr. Barber - the curmudgeonly,, rules-obsessed, animal-hating substitute postal worker won a goose from Tom Hapwell’s flock and Gussie accidentally ended up in his hands by mistake. Not only does he refuse to return her because a goose is a bad pet (“I’ve never heard of anything so stupid”), but he plans to eat her.
Mandy and James try multiple times to rescue Gussie, but she keeps running away (hence the title) even managing to get out of Ernie Bell’s garden. As they fret over how to spare her from being Sunday supper, Mr. Barber is a general menace. He tries to demand that Dr. Emily put down a dog (Mr. Moon’s german shepherd, Sheba) for “attacking him,” when she was really just trying to alert that her owner had broken his ankle and needed help. He also refuses to help Ernie Bell correct a minor postal error and refuses to correct the goose mix-up despite being asked by both Minister Hadcroft and Tom Hapwell. There’s also a big traffic pileup with people trying to apprehend the escaped goose.
The two kids decide to sneak out after midnight to try and free Gussie one more time, but when they arrive and hear her distress sounds, they spot wisps of smoke billowing from the shed she is locked inside. Mr. Barber yells at them for making a racket and trying to rob him so it’s on their shoulders to call for assistance. The whole town shows up to help put out the growing fire and Dr. Adam scolds the kids for putting themselves in serious danger and scaring everyone when the alarm sounded with their beds empty.
When Mandy realizes that Gussie has wandered into the burning post office to eat spilled cereal and vegetables off the floor, even James draws the line and tells her that she cannot storm into the building; just as she’s about to protest, Mr. Barber, uncharacteristically, steps in and announces that he will rescue her. Everyone cheers when he returns, hands her over, and announces, he won’t ever eat goose again. He even admits that he has been wrong about animals, including Sheba, and that he has made just as many mistakes as he has accused others of doing - including forgetting his pipe in the shed, starting the fire.
They tell Penny that Gussie was no trouble and their punishment is to clean the cages and other chores at the clinic. Mandy has also found the perfect match for Jack, a pug who has been at Animal Ark waiting to adopted: Mr. Barber. She figured a puppy could help him with his fear of dogs and that Jack’s docile temperament would be a good match. It’s a sweet ending, but getting here was such a trial, especially after reading about so many escape artists already.
15. Calf in the Cottage by Linda Kempton
Despite not wanting to admit it, Mr. Matthews is struggling to keep up with the labor demands of Burnside Farm while his son, Alan, is away at Australia negotiating inheritance legal paperwork. Given that it’s calving season, which requires all of his attention, other daily tasks (especially groceries and cleaning) have fallen to the wayside. Mandy and James insist on providing help, especially when he scalds his arm with a kettle of tea, and also call Dr. Adam when a cow with twins has trouble with her birth. Worse still, Sam Western is lurking around because he wants to buy the property, as usual, via bullying tactics. Adam and Emily perform an emergency c-section for a cow carrying twins. One of the calves doesn’t last long, unfortunately, fading the next day due to being born premature. Everyone gets misty eyed over the lost calf, even Mr. Matthews.
Thanks to help from the community, things start looking up. Mandy’s grandparents and Lydia Fawcett both donate food, Steve Barker, one of Mr. Western’s hands, regrets assisting his boss with intimidation tactics and instead lends a hand around the dairy. Walter Pickard and Ernie Bell also come by to pitch in with odd jobs and chores. Western fires Steve on the spot, but Alan calls to announce that the paperwork is sorted and he’s on his way back home to put the money toward an auction to buy neighboring Highfield Farm before Western can get to it. Mr. Matthews even announces that he’s named the surviving calf Mandy after the little girl who helped save her life.
Naturally, Mandy the calf goes missing at some point. This is just becoming par for the course in the series and it’s becoming very old. Many of the cows are heading toward an open gate in confusion, likely left open by Western in a last-ditch effort to prevent them from attending the auction, but they wrangle everyone and find the calf safe indoors. After Alan buys the farm, they have a big celebration luncheon in which Mr. Matthews offers Steve a permanent job.
There were some pleasant moments here. Mr. Matthews was a delightful sweetheart; very passionate about his animals and his family history when he shows the kids a photo album of the generations of folk who raised dairy cows. It’s also nice when James demonstrates that he also deeply loves animals; I loved when he told Mr. Matthews that he was torn between studying computers and animals (which I bet he could find a way to combine!) and that he had been researching calves to help out on the farm. But it’s just a little too redundant from stories that have recycled similar beats (farmer learns to accept aid from neighbors, Western tries to expand his land and fails, animal goes missing.)
16. Koalas in Crisis by Jenny Oldfield
The next three books feature the Hopes adventures in Eurabbie Bay at Mitchell Gap for a six-month vet exchange program while the Munroe’s set up in Welford. We are introduced quickly to a host of new characters: the Simpson family, including surf-obsessed Gary, Katie, the nurse at Mitchell Gap, and Graham Masters, owner of a rescue center for wild animals at Peppermint Hill. There’s also a sprinkling of colloquialisms throughout the book, such as “ayyo” for “afternoon” and “buster” for sudden, powerful storms, and so many “no worries.” The majority of animals at the clinic are domestic pets, but Mandy does meet her first wombat and is invited by Katie to go on a bushwalk to Wirritoomba Falls to look for koalas.
On their trek, we are introduced to local flora and fauna: screaming kookaburra, volcanic rocks of the mountain, pink bark of peppermint gums, possums and sugar gliders, echidna, bandicoots, bats, lizards, and emu. The descriptions of the landscape were really nice and they even take some of Mandy’s koala-obsessed focus away to the rest of what the region has to offer. After their first night camping, they arrive at Blue Peak sanctuary, run by Mike McDonald, and hike toward a cluster of spotted gum where Mandy meets her first koala. From there, they go vomping (not quite walking or running but somewhere in between?) and them diamond fossicking at the river by Glen Ives. The locals tell them that the forest around the sanctuary is going to be torn down to make way for a major road since Glen Ives is transforming into a mining town, which means the koala colonies need to be relocated.
Mandy and Cherry, Mr. McDonald’s daughter, resolve to scope out the jarrahs to see if they can spot any colonies to better prepare; unfortunately, they do spot koalas eating jarrah leaves, which is a tree that doesn’t grow in any other location on the reserve. Back at the camp, Katie explains that koala numbers dwindled, in part, due to disease, hunters, and forest fires, and their specific diet makes it that much harder. Dr. Emily, Katie, Cherry, Gary, and Mandy explore the mountains looking for a jarrah forest. Gary saves Mandy from a King Brown Snake, and they drive out to a warmer, wetter, and more humid environment near a stream where Cherry finally finds some jarrah. The next step is to safely transport the critters to their new home. This proves difficult since the koalas don’t want to come down, so Mandy and Cherry wear a harness system to climb up and coax a mother and baby down so the rest might follow.
I appreciate that the book doesn’t shy away from how difficult this process is. They are running on so little sleep and many uncomfortable nights in sleeping bags trying to even find the trees; but they also note that getting the koalas into the cages isn’t a smooth or pleasant process either, especially since the animals are confused and wary. Plus, after they have every critter safely secured, it’s time for another long drive back to the mountains. Everything turns out well though and Mandy is satisfied they all worked so hard to save these animals she fell in love with.
One element I did not like about the book were the uncomfortable comparisons to natives. Mandy describes the crest of a cockatoo as looking like “a Mohican,” and even though she means it positively (since he’s majestic), it’s still awkward. There’s another moment later on when Katie uses the Aboriginal word for koalas (narnagoon) and the narration notes “The strange Aboriginal name sent a tingle down Mandy’s spine.” Like the first instance, this is meant to convey that she’s really excited to see something so unfamiliar and interesting, but it does so in an alienating fashion that exoticisizes/others Aboriginals for a white traveler.
This kind of language drops off for the next two books in the trilogy, which I am thankful for. I think it’s a fun endeavor to introduce readers to animals they might be less familiar with, especially the importance of conservation efforts to protect them.
17. Wombat in the Wild by Jenny Oldfield
After a morning of boogie boarding with the local kids, Mandy joins Dr. Adam for a visit to Orchards Farms to vaccinate Hilda Harris’s cows. While feeding chickens, Matilda, the last remaining goat, and Batty, an old wombat camping out int he hayloft, Mandy learns that Hilda is selling the farm and all of her animals to move to Sydney due to her ongoing heart problems. Merv, who delivers groceries to the region, helps find Matilda a home, but relocating Batty proves much more difficult especially since it requires a specialized license. Graham offers to care for Batty at Peppermint Hill over the holidays when they can resume the push to find a permanent home, but when Hilda looks heartbroken at the prospect Gary explains to Mandy that the oldest, unadopted animals at the center are euthanized due to overcrowding. Moving day comes and goes, as does the new year, and there are no adoption requests. Graham confirms the worst and Mandy heads home in tears.
The next morning, however, Graham calls with different news: Batty’s kennel is empty and there are signs he dug his way under the fence. Bursting to tell Gary the news, he acts aloof and says he’ll talk to her after school. He confesses to having sneaked out early in the morning to say goodbye to Batty, but found him already digging his tunnel. So Gary helped him by pushing the fence back so that he could break free, but he just sat on the ground instead of heading into the wild. So he Mandy resolves to let her parents know about the escape and her new rescue mission: to train Batty to burrow, forage, and fend against predators so that he can be properly released. They give the kids permission to pitch up a tent so they can keep an eye on Batty and his small steps toward progress.
There’s a really sweet moment where Mandy overhears Gary telling Bats, “If Hilda can learn to live a new kind of life, so can you.” He pretends to be very cool and nonchalant in the first book, but he turns out to be such a softie for animals. Training isn’t the smoothest process, but they remain committed to every small step of progress. First, he learns how to forage for food, but he’s not interested in the makeshift burrow they begin digging for him, preferring the comfort of an abandoned trailer. After a few days, he makes progress with going out on his own in the evening, and, eventually, adds depth and additional bark lining to the burrow to make a more comfortable nest that he actually chooses to sleep in!
The next morning, Mandy notices Batty wandered away from the main burrow and finds him munching away at grass; there, she learns he still doesn’t know how to defend himself since he doesn’t notice a nearby dingo sneaking up on him. Despite needing Mandy to rescue him, Bats heads out when the kids are asleep in the tents once more and doesn’t come back in the morning. Katie and Mandy search the area looking for wombat tracks, but end up finding signs of a struggle, including blood and fur. Convinced Batty might not have made it, Mandy tries to cheer herself up at the old burrow to remind herself of all the successes they did have together with his rehabilitation effort; while there, Batty emerges on the hill - battered, but very much alive. Katie cleans his wounds and insists on letting him fend for himself because if he can survive a dingo scrap then he’s proven he’s tough enough to survive.
For a second, I was convinced that Batty’s status was going to remain unknown, but I’m not surprised that we got a last minute confirmation that he made it through. I think given the target demographic of the series, that’s a natural conclusion to reach. This is my favorite entry in the Outback trilogy. I love the teamwork between Mandy and Gary and it’s easy to cheer for Bats’ survival in the wild. It was also fun reading about how hot everyone was with Christmas around the corner - a good lesson about the different seasons of the northern and southern hemisphere that American and British readers alike might be less familiar with conceptually. Even coming from California, a place where it was regularly quite warm in December, the idea of separating Christmas from Winter would have felt very strange to me growing up.
18. Roo on the Rock by Jenny Oldfield
Mandy and her parents have reached the last month of their stay in Australia. On the drive back from the Melbourne Zoo, Gary points out that they are passing by the area where his Uncle Art lives — an estranged family member who had an argument with his brother over inheritance money some years ago. Just as they’re nearing town, a big storm rolls in. They play games to pass the time and then Katie tells Dr. Adam about her college friend, Martin, who studied formulas for joeys. While chatting, an impatient off-roader parks behind them and they let him go first as soon as the storm clears. Unfortunately, not far ahead, they find the same car trying to back out of a ditch and, left in its wake, is a fatally injured kangaroo and her joey. They stop at Uncle Art’s farm where the mom passes from internal injuries. Together, they discuss the different options for the joey Mandy has named Moonbeam. Katie thinks it would be best to get him placed at the zoo, but as the joey calls out for his mom, Mandy longs for him to be back in the wild. Art even inquires about looking after him, but he seems put off by the process of applying for a license.
Back home, Dr. Emily checks Moonbeam for trauma and gives him the clear to relocate to Peppermint Hill where Graham introduces him to solid foods, a new kennel, and Mitch and Star - two other young joeys. Martin drives over to the rescue one morning to relocate the roos to Melbourne, but, in a surprising turn, Art also shows up having walked all the way on foot with the proper paperwork to adopt not just one, but all three joeys in the hopes that he can reintroduce them into the mob by his farm. Mandy and Gary are all too eager to help him raise the joeys and observe the older kangaroos so they know what to expect. On their pathway down the roo tracks, the boss male gets into a fight by a challenging junior; Mandy is surprised to learn how aggressive they can be in the wild and knows better what Moonbeam and his friends are up against.
Soon the day arrives when Art feels satisfied that the boys are ready to go free. Mandy tells her parents the news and decides to meddle in Gary’s family affairs by telling his father and Art that the other had expressed a desire to bury the hatchet. The white lie works and everyone picnics together and watches the joeys successfully be accepted by the boss male into the mob. This brings Gary’s family closer together as his father develops a new appreciation for nature and Art agrees to take a rare day off to go fishing with his brother. As he gets antsy about leaving his animals away for too long, Mandy and Gary volunteer to go take care of them so he can enjoy a longer relaxation; Merv gives them a ride to the farm but warns them about an oncoming storm despite there not being a cloud in the sky. In fact, everyone has been more concerned about an ongoing late summer drought and the possibility of brushfires.
Speaking of which, after tending to the animals, and saying hello to Moonbeam and the mob, the wind picks up ominously and startles all of the roos back toward the farm. Moonbeam is especially on edge as though trying to warn them of something and that’s when they see it: smoke on the horizon from a fire. It’s not until Mitch and Star appear that Moonbeam finally leaves Mandy’s side to join the rest of the fleeing mob. On an injured ankle, Mandy joins Gary to free the sheep and goat, Dollar; while struggling to get the latter from his pen, and still searching for the cats, Mandy hears the siren of the fire engine approaching just in time as she reaches her limits and passes out from the smoke. The firefighters have all of the animals accounted for, but the wind is blowing the fire in the wrong direction making it hard to contain. As Mandy is about to load into a paramedic truck, it begins to rain. Everyone reunites at Mitchell Gap and the next day Merv assists them with relocating Art’s farm animals. They assess the damage and watch all the animals returning to the area, including the roo mob.
One part that frustrated me with this book is when Mandy calls out to Moonbeam from the farm fence. I understand she was excited to see him out in his element, but he’s a wild animal and can’t be distracted from his routine by humans - especially one who helped handrear him and might tempt his return to a domesticated location. It feels like after everything with Batty, not to mention other wild animals in the Welford books like the badger, that Mandy would be especially weary of treating animals like pets, but she suddenly seems to forget that principle in this book.
It also felt deeply unbelievable that these kids went to the farm on their own, rescued several animals from an encroaching fire, and came out relatively unscathed - even all the animals made it just fine. I know that it would be a huge bummer to feature a lot of death in one chapter book, especially since the mama roo dies so early, but it felt like the stakes skyrocketed in a small span of time. Even though I could see the fire coming, because why mention it if it wasn’t going to happen, but the way it was handled took me out.
And that’s everything I read for this batch! The next one will feature five entries in the main series and then three from the wilds of Africa. Here’s hoping that the next ones offer a bit more variation!