Fluffles, impossibly cute illustrated reader for mid-elementary

Remember the Australian fires in 2020? How about the lungs of the Earth are on fire during the Brazilian wildfires of 2020? You may be thinking of the Californian wildfires of 2020? It could have been one of the other years, they blend together. Fluffles, The Brave Koala Who Held Strong Through a Bushfire gives you some idea of the location for this book. The True Stories of Animal Heroes series on Frances Lincoln Children’s Books are fascinating, often unheard of stories that mid-elementary school kids will be able to read by themselves.

They also teach soft lessons by using real animals as their examples. We read Onyx and liked it, even though the aspect of the story being true strained our adult mind. Fluffles is a non-fiction story too, and while it doesn’t strain credibility, it’s not a story that was front-page news to most people outside of Adelaide or the koala community.

Those astute readers have figured out that Fluffles, although it sounds like that simultaneously cute and evil toy from the ’90s, was one of the koalas in the 2020 Australian bush fires. During those fires, millions of acres burned, affecting people, livelihoods, homes, industries, and wildlife, Fluffles is about how it impacted the koalas. For most people, the koala is the more active and much cuter sister of the sloth and a visual representation of Australia.

As Fluffles opens up we see a handful of koalas hanging out in a eucalyptus forest, as they do. Their cheeks are pink, they’re squeezing trees and trying to hold each other’s hands. Lightning strikes, as it does, and starts a fire, which sends the world’s cutest animals up higher into the trees. The fire gobbles up the lower leaves and branches, creating a stick of a tree with a frightened cutie patootie hanging on for dear life up top.

When the fire is extinguished, the koala still has to come down the tree, whose bark has been stripped and replaced with hot wood or coals. Veterinarians made special mittens for the koalas and while they soothed their hands, they did not offer the tactile comfort that they were used to when it came time to hug one another. Thankfully the scientists and veterinarians removed their mittens and the koalas could resume their hugging.

See? Muck like Onyx, the story seems too cute to possibly be true. As Fluffles ends we see some real-life photos from the fire, as well as photos of a koala in mittens, which is worth the price of admission by itself.

This series of books is impossibly cute and age-appropriate for those in third grade and up to do book reports on certain subjects. Granted, in this case, the report would be limited to koalas that were impacted by the 2020 Adelaide fires. School-age kids will love the images. They’re soft, very pleasing, and paired well with the direct and easy-to-understand text. Fluffies won’t be challenging to read for most fourth-graders, but those younger than that will love the feel-good, animal inspiration messages. The older readers just might be motivated to research the topic to see how much of the story is true.

Fluffles, True Stories of Animal Heroes, The Brave Koala Who Held Strong Through a Bushfire is by Vita Murrow with art by Rachel Qiuqi and on Frances Lincoln Children’s Books, an imprint of Quarto Knows.

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