And this koala is determined to be at the very top of EVERYTHING. From a mast in the Sydney to Hobart yacht race to the Parliament House flagpole in Canberra, this koala travels around Australia and tops it all! Over the course of their evolutionary history, koalas have responded to climate change, disease, changing forests, increasing aridity, predation and hunting. And they have survived. But I do know that koalas, like all of us, need something to hold, whether it's a tree or the warmth of another body.

If you hadn’t seen the cover and title of Danielle Clode’s newest book, would you guess you’re from a species around for some 37 million years yet only abundantly studied over the last twenty or so years?Many frown upon anthropomorphizing animals, but Clode’s discussion on how the joeys cling to their mothers and how their sense of touch is critical to survival is relatable and heartwarming. Koala fingerprints are unique like ours too. And like us, the tips of their fingers have a purpose: to make them more sensitive when they touch things. Are fingertips “as important to koala evolution as it has been to our own”? the author asks.

Marsupials stay pregnant for a very short time and have a pouch. Koala bears stay pregnant for 30-35 days. The new born koala bear is called a joey. It weighs half a gram. When born, a joey crawls into its mama’s pouch and feeds on milk. Between sleeping and eating, koalas are “an almost entirely arboreal animal.” Why it’s highly unlikely to spot them in the wild. Perched high up in these trees, they find safety away from predators on the ground. When they do climb down its nightfall, when most people aren’t searching for them. This is the book I've been waiting for – for 40 years.’—Sy Montgomery, author of The Soul of the OctopusLittle koala has grown and now he must leave his mother and find his own way in the world. With a gentle push, he climbs away to find his next meal. He faces many dangers, a thundering male koala challenges him and pushes him off his tree and wild storms. Eucalyptus trees with burnt bark from a bushfire prove hard to climb and he must travel further away to find a new home. Scared by a poisonous snake hiding in the bushes he hops hurriedly away. Eventually he finds a perfect place for his new home. Danielle Clode lives in bushfire country. She wants us to care. About the fate of koalas, and what their story is telling us. About their need to “climb to freedom” – and ours. Part of the Lulu Bell series, this book follows protagonist Lulu on her holiday to Tarni Beach. Everything is perfect: She has a new pink surfboard, Dad is going to teach her to surf, and she has her friend Zac by her side to explore the nearby bush. But bulldozers have arrived, posing a threat to the trees and wildlife. If all the trees are taken away, mummy koala and her joey won’t have a home. It’s up to Lulu to work out how to help them. Clode is a master at popularising science and making the complex understandable … An important book that focuses on the koala but is really an impassioned and informed plea for the conservation of Australia’s flora, fauna, and wild places. This is natural history and science writing at its best.’ —Peter Menkhorst, Australian Book Review

Of the hundreds of species of eucalypts found across Australia, only seventy percent or so are recognized as koala food trees and, of these, any one individual koala might only eat three or five or ten different species. How do they know which leaves they can eat? Especially when the leaves of these trees are toxic for other creatures? (Note: a eucalyptus plant is toxic to dogs and cats.) Key is how specialized their teeth and digestive system are to their survival. Singular might be one way to describe the author too. How often does someone spend their childhood education sailing around a continent, then attending college and winning a Rhodes scholarship to Oxford University, where she earned a doctorate in zoology? One might assume her curiosity to “tell the story of the koala” was instilled early on – seeing, experiencing a stunning and wild landscape of enormous, unique biodiversity. A word that encompasses all forms of life in a geographic region. Clode, a science writer, is fortunate to live in a corner of Australia where koalas are thriving.’ —Tim Flannery, The New York Review of Books Mem Fox's books are like a warm blanket; they have a way of making the world seem a little cosier.' The AgeKoala is a winner …Easily readable, with a welcomed personal touch. I highly recommend this book.’—Marc Bekoff, author of A Dog’s World I thought what how can northern koalas be smaller when then are in colder climates. Then it dawned on me that Australia is in the southern hemisphere and that northern is closer to the equator and warmer while south is closer to the south pole and colder.

Koala bears are marsupials from Australia with fascinating characteristics. Unfortunately, these cute and cuddly creatures are also in grave danger from loss of habitat and disease, and they need our help. Can a new vaccine save the Koalas from a deadly disease that has infected almost all of them? Find out this and more about Koalas in this Kahani’s second book published on Free Kids Books. Sample Text from The Cute and Cuddly Koalas Koala is filled with interesting facts about Koalas and marsupials. In one chapter Danielle talks about the similarities between Marsupials and Placental animals. I also learned that north Americas marsupial is the Virginia opossum. I never knew that North America had a native marsupial. Now I do. the humility of her approach encourages us to interrogate the koala information, or lore, even as we receive it, thus promoting the kind of active reading that must surely enhance the way we go on to experience the landscape around us.’ —Gregory Day, The Saturday Age In vivid, descriptive prose, Clode embarks on a delightful and surprising journey through evolutionary biology, natural history, and ecology to understand where these enigmatic animals came from and what their future may hold. She begins her search with the fossils of ancient giant koalas, delving into why the modern koala has become the lone survivor of a once-diverse family of uniquely Australian marsupials.The story of the koala has taken me into the distant past, across continent and cultures and through an incredibly wide range of knowledge systems: botany, ecology, Indigenous knowledge, evolution, palaeontology, anatomy, conservation biology, history, toxicology, psychology, veterinary and nutritional science, and animal behavior. In the end, it was not he Australian government who stopped the slaughter, but an American president. Hoover responded by prohibiting the importation of koala and wombat skins into the United States, and the trade eventually dried up.