Dingo

Poetic language and glorious illustrations follow a dingo from the comfort of her pack into the darkening landscape in search of food for her family.

Can you see her? There — deep in the stretching shadows — a dingo. Her pointed ears twitch. Her tawny eyes flash in the low-slung sun.

Dingo leaves her sleeping pups with her mate and lifts her head to smell the air. Dusk is a busy time — the time for hunting. Softly and fleetly she runs through the forest, past a possum, a wombat, and kangaroos in the gully below. Now she climbs to the highest point and sniffs again, locating the scent of rabbits in the wind. Interspersed with text offering facts for curious readers, Dingo is a lyrical foray into the life of these fascinating wild dogs.A tawny antipodean hunter pads through Tannya Harricks’s gorgeous, impressionistic oil paintings… a double-text approach allows the book to be read at two levels, with the larger writing following a particular female dingo as she hunts “softly, softly through the forest . . . sure-footed, flexible, and fast,” while the smaller writing conveys facts about the nature and habits of these wild dogs. With thick brushstrokes, Ms. Harricks summons the sere land and low trees of the Australian bush, the unseen moon turning the ground almost white as the dingo hunts for a rabbit to feed her pups. It’s a beautiful tribute to an often-maligned animal, and wonderful to read aloud.
—The Wall Street JournalClaire Saxby is the best-selling and award-winning author of many books, including Big Red Kangaroo and Emu, both illustrated by Graham Byrne, and Koala, illustrated by Julie Vivas. Claire Saxby lives in Melbourne, Australia.

Tannya Harricks is an award-winning visual artist whose sketches done in outdoor landscape are brought to life in the studio with layers of oil paint and bold brushstrokes. Dingo is her first picture book. She lives in Sydney, Australia.