WANDI: PRIDE OF THE DINGO

 

Sixty one per cent of households in Australia have pets, forty per cent of which are dogs. This affinity for the canid as a domestic companion runs counter to the disdain, suspicion, hostility and persecution of Australia’s native dog, the dingo.

Award winning Australian novelist, Favel Parrett, is remedying the bad rep of the dingo in her wonderful new book, WANDI.

This tale of trial and tribulation and ultimate triumph begins with a dingo cub, Wandi, staring at the night sky, “bright eyes blazing with wonder.”

Wandi is in a cosy existence with loving mother, father and siblings. He is schooled in food fossicking and the dangers of predators, especially humans.

But fate ruffles the feathers of this idyll when an almost prophetic avian attack snatches the cub, carrying him away from the folds of his family, finally falling from the clutches of the eagle to land in a suburban backyard.

The petrified pup fears he has gone from frying pan into the fire when the shadow of the bird of prey is replaced by that of the two legged predator his father warned him of.

Fortunately for him, the human is not the purveyor of poison or bullet dispensing killer foretold by his father, but a caring individual who takes him to a dingo sanctuary.

It is here that Wandi receives his name, a shortening of Wandiligong, in honour of where he was found and commences to fulfill his destiny to foster a better understanding of his species to the many, often hateful humans, historically hostile to these intrinsically vital creatures to our heritage and habitat.

Based on a true story, WANDI has all the hallmarks to become a children’s classic, a bracing narrative bridge between the wild and the human, enhanced by cover and internal illustrations by Zoe Ingram.

The volume also contains a Q&A with the author and a synopsis of dingo traits, habitats and place in Australia’s ecosystem by sanctuary supervisor, Kevin D Newman.

Wonderfully written and beautifully bound and presented with a cover design by Astrid Hicks, WANDI is one for the keeping.

WANDI by Favel Parrett is published by Lothian through Hachette Australia.

Richard Cotter.