Book info

• Title The Wombles
• Author Elisabeth Beresford
• Year 1968
• Genre Childrens

The Wombles is the first ever Wombles book and introduces the stern but kindly Great Uncle Bulgaria; Orinoco, who is particularly fond of his food and a subsequent forty winks; general handyman extraordinaire Tobermory, who can turn almost anything that the Wombles retrieve from Wimbledon Common into something useful; Madame Cholet, who cooks the most delicious and natural foods to keep the Wombles happy and contented; and last but not least, Bungo, one of the youngest and cheekiest Wombles of all, who has much to learn and is due to venture out on to the Common on his own for the very first time...

Thoughts

Call me a fool, but I hadn’t realised the Wombles were in a book before they were on television. I’ve enjoyed their programme and I know of some of their ways, I know they wish me a Wombling Merry Christmas but when I saw there was a book and did a bit of investigation, I realised I didn’t know very much about the Wombles at all!

So, to start at the beginning was glorious, and this book is so lovely. A couple of wombling adventures, mostly featuring Bungo, introduce you to this world of tidy litter-picking creatures, inhabiting our world alongside but mostly ignored by human kind.

It’s a fabulous, imaginative, children’s book, and I just can’t understand why I haven’t read it before. I should probably be embarrassed about loving it quite so much at this point in my life, but hey, cute furry bear-like creatures having adventures is right up my street!

Rating: 5 / 5