REVIEWS:

Where’s Lucky? fictionalises the wonderful work done for orphaned kangaroos by wildlife carers, such as Theresa and Tony of Our Haven Wildlife Shelter in Victoria. The real Theresa and Tony are depicted within the story (and you can pick this from the style in the first illustration they are in), and perhaps there are some other real models among the joeys.

Lucky’s mother was hit by a car. Hidden in her pouch, he was lucky to be rescued and raised amongst a big family of joeys. The hectic life of the wildlife carers, and their love for their charges, is depicted in a litany of situations, punctuated by Lucky always seeming to be elsewhere, creating havoc. The series of alternate page double spreads with the question “Where’s Lucky?” are fun, silent narratives where the evidence is laid bare – food knocked off the table, Lucky sitting up at the kitchen sink, in the clothes basket – to be examined and delighted in by the reader.

The gentle and beautiful illustrations are mostly pastel colours on open white backgrounds. Illustrator Sandra Severgnini captures the working life of the shelter as a crowded family space and depicts many humorous attitudes and scenes particularly featuring Lucky and Bluey as endearingly and unwittingly mischievous children. Watching them grow and thrive and finally return to the wild is the happy storyline – Marita Thomson