Wombats Are Pretty Weird

by Abi Cushman

Abi Cushman’s humorous informational picture book introduces wombats through surprising facts, expressive illustrations, and playful animal conversations. Readers discover these Australian marsupials’ digging adaptations, backward-facing pouches, and famously cube-shaped poop while exploring how apparently “weird” traits help an animal survive.

Big Idea

An animal’s unusual features often have useful purposes. Writers can make factual information memorable by controlling the pace of discovery through humor, dialogue, illustrations, and well-timed surprises.

Discussion Questions

1.Why might someone describe a wombat as “weird”? How could learning more about it change that description?
2.Which wombat feature surprised you most, and how might that feature help the animal in its habitat?
3.How do the animal conversations and illustrations change the way you experience the facts?
4.Where did you want to stop and examine a picture, and where did you want to turn the page quickly? What caused those different reactions?
5.How could you teach someone an accurate wombat fact while also making them laugh?

Lesson Plan

⏱ 45 minutes: read and notice, 12 minutes; revisit facts, 6 minutes; plan, 5 minutes; create, 15 minutes; share and revise, 7 minutes.📦 A copy of Wombats Are Pretty Weird, paper, pencils, crayons or markers, chart paper, and optional sticky notes.

Learning Goals

Identify and accurately explain at least two wombat facts presented in the book.
Distinguish factual information from invented animal speech or humorous reactions.
Use a question, page turn, or pause to control when a reader discovers information.
Combine illustrations and words to communicate a clear informational idea.
Read a short text aloud and revise it in response to a partner’s feedback.

Activity Steps

1.Read the book aloud, briefly pausing before selected reveals. Create a class chart with two columns: “What we learned about wombats” and “How the author made us curious.”
2.Revisit examples involving digging, backward-facing pouches, or cube-shaped poop. Separate the accurate information from the fictionalized animal conversations, and have each student choose a fact supported by the book.
3.Fold a sheet of paper into a four-page booklet. Plan page 1 as a curiosity-building question, page 2 as a visual clue, page 3 as the factual reveal, and page 4 as an explanation or closing reaction.
4.Draft and illustrate the booklet. Include a narrator’s factual sentence and at least one clearly invented animal speech bubble; explain a feature’s purpose only when the book supports that explanation.
5.Read booklets to partners, who signal where they felt curious, surprised, or confused. Revise one word, picture, pause, or reveal, then share selected examples.

Standards Connections

ELA: CCSS RI.K.1–RI.5.1 — Ask and answer questions about informational text, progressing toward accurate reference to details and evidence.
ELA: CCSS RI.K.7–RI.5.7 — Interpret information conveyed through illustrations and other visual features; apply the grade-specific expectations.
ELA: CCSS W.K.2–W.5.2 — Create informative/explanatory texts using developmentally appropriate drawing, dictation, and writing.
ELA: CCSS SL.K.1–SL.5.1 — Participate in collaborative conversations, listen to others, and build on their ideas.
Science: NGSS 1-LS1-1 and 4-LS1-1 connections — Examine how animal structures support survival; the wombat study supports the structure-and-function concepts but does not alone fulfill every performance expectation.

Printable Teacher’s Guide

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Grades K-5 Ready to print

Pace-Write-Read Study with Pace-Write It!

Although the supplied category identifies this book as fiction, Wombats Are Pretty Weird is best approached instructionally as an informational picture book with fictionalized animal conversations. Its factual subject is wombats, but its lively delivery offers a useful writing lesson: information can unfold with the curiosity and surprise associated with a story. Cushman combines explanations, comic animal exchanges, and illustrations so that readers learn while enjoying the reactions surrounding each discovery. In a Pace-Write-Read study, students investigate when to move forward and when to linger. Wombats’ backward-facing pouches and cube-shaped poop are especially useful content for testing how a question, an image, or a delayed answer can build anticipation. Read a selected spread first at a uniform speed, then reread it with deliberate pauses and contrasting voices. Ask which reading better supports understanding and humor, using the actual words and layout as evidence. Students then transfer the craft rather than copy the language: select a true fact, decide when readers should learn it, and use pictures and brief dialogue to shape that discovery. For K–1, teach this through oral rehearsal and drawing; for grades 2–3, add short captions and speech bubbles; for grades 4–5, emphasize factual precision, purposeful sequencing, and revision. Across grades, distinguish what the book demonstrably does from optional techniques students might experiment with.

Element	How to notice or teach it in the novel
1. Pacing	Notice how factual explanations and comic animal reactions create different reading speeds. Reread a wombat-fact spread and test where a pause helps readers understand or appreciate the joke.
2. Plot	Rather than forcing the book into a conventional problem-and-solution plot, trace its progression of discoveries about wombats. Ask how accumulating facts changes readers’ understanding of the title.
3. Prosody	Contrast a clear informational narrator’s voice with expressive voices for the speaking animals. Have students explain which words or punctuation justify a change in emphasis.
4. Word	Examine the title word “weird” alongside scientific vocabulary such as “marsupial.” Discuss how an inviting everyday word can draw readers toward a more precise scientific concept.
5. Concept	Connect wombat facts to the larger concept of adaptation: unusual does not mean useless. Use the backward-facing pouch as an example of a feature suited to a digging animal.
6. Voice & Worldview	Identify places where the delivery feels amused, curious, or admiring rather than dry. Discuss how the book invites readers to appreciate an animal that initially seems strange.
7. Point of View	Separate information delivered by the narrator from comments made by the illustrated animals. Ask what each speaker knows or reacts to and why the distinction matters for factual reading.
8. Setting & Place	Locate Australia on a map and revisit the book’s depictions of wombats’ habitat and burrows. Discuss how these places help explain digging behaviors and body features.
9. Original Characters	Study how the wombats and snake become recognizable personalities through expressions, poses, and speech. Students can invent a distinct animal commentator while keeping its imaginary dialogue separate from factual claims.
10. Dialogue	Read the animal conversations separately from the informational text, then combine them. Ask how the dialogue adds reaction, humor, or a change of pace without replacing the facts.
11. Details	Compare a general statement such as “wombats are unusual” with the specific detail that their poop is cube-shaped. Discuss why a precise detail is more memorable and informative.
12. Descriptions	Compare what the words explain about a wombat’s body with what the illustrations show. Invite students to write a brief description that adds useful information rather than merely repeating the picture.
13. Firsts	Ask students to mark the first fact that changed their previous idea of a wombat. Use that moment to discuss how a writer introduces unfamiliar subject matter to a new reader.
14. Immediacy & Engagement	Examine how the title’s bold claim makes readers want evidence. Students can test an equally inviting opening for a factual wombat page without exaggerating the science.
15. Story Scenes, Summaries & Structures	Distinguish a brief animal exchange that feels like a scene from a passage that summarizes information. Map how these two modes work together across several spreads.
16. Tension / Suspense / Surprise	Use the unexpected cube-shaped poop fact to distinguish informational surprise from danger-based suspense. Ask what readers expect before the reveal and how the book changes that expectation.
17. Flashback, Flash-Forward, Cliffhanger	Do not assume the book contains these narrative devices; check for explicit evidence before labeling a passage. As an extension, students can add a factual teaser before a mini-book page turn without inventing a flashback.
18. Page Turns and Chapter Breaks	This picture book uses spreads and page turns rather than chapters. Examine a selected turn to decide whether it introduces a new topic, completes a thought, or delivers a surprise.
19. Pace & Creativity	Present the backward-facing pouch fact in two student-created versions: an immediate explanation and a delayed reveal. Compare how the same accurate content produces different experiences.
20. Play	Notice the playful mismatch between serious animal information and comic reactions. Let students improvise a short response to a wombat fact, then check that the performance has not altered the fact.
21. Performance	Assign readers to the narrator and speaking animals for a selected spread. Rehearse timing so the factual statement remains clear and the reaction arrives at an effective moment.
22. Personality	Choose an illustrated animal and infer its attitude from its face, posture, and words. Ask students to support descriptions such as curious or surprised with visible evidence.
23. Humor	Discuss how an unexpected fact, an animal’s reaction, and an illustration can each contribute to a joke. Use the poop discussion to model enjoying a funny topic while still learning accurate information.
24. Pause	Give students silent looking time after a visually or scientifically surprising moment. Compare that pause with one placed before a reveal: one supports processing, while the other builds anticipation.
25. Poetry / Poetic Devices	Read “Wombats Are Pretty Weird” aloud and notice the repeated initial sound in “wombats” and “weird.” Search for additional sound play without assuming the book is rhyming verse.
26. Repetition	Look for repeated wording, visual reactions, or a recurring pattern of fact followed by comment. Identify only patterns supported by the pages, then discuss how repetition helps readers anticipate a rhythm.
27. Rhythm	Listen to the contrast between explanatory sentences and shorter conversational responses. Students can alternate a factual sentence and a brief reaction to hear how sentence length changes momentum.
28. Punctuation	Inspect punctuation in an actual animal exchange and explain how it guides expression and stopping. Try changing the punctuation in a student-written reaction and compare the resulting pace.
29. Questions	Track questions the text raises and questions students generate about wombats. Sort them into those the book answers and those requiring additional reliable sources.
30. Compare-Contrast	Use the backward-facing pouch to challenge the assumption that all marsupial pouches face the same way. Consult a reliable additional source before making specific comparisons with another animal.
31. Objects	Use a paper cube to make the unusual poop shape concrete, while explaining that the model represents shape rather than exact size. Discuss why a simple physical model may help explain one memorable detail.
32. Threes	Use the book’s introduction to the three living wombat species to examine how grouping information can organize learning. Do not confuse that factual group of three with proof that every joke or passage follows a three-part pattern.
33. Lists	Build a list of verified wombat facts from the read-aloud. Compare reading the list straight through with Cushman’s illustrated, conversational presentation to see how arrangement changes the pace.
34. White Space & Negative Space	Inspect a spread for open areas around words, characters, or speech bubbles. Ask whether that space isolates a reaction, reduces visual competition, or gives the reader somewhere to pause.
35. Art & Graphics	Identify information communicated through pictures rather than words alone, especially body position, digging, and animal reactions. Discuss how the art supports both scientific understanding and comedy.
36. Interactives & Gamification	Create a teacher-led “Predict, Reveal, Verify” game using facts the class has not yet encountered. Make clear that this is a classroom extension, not a claim that the book contains built-in games or movable features.
37. Placement	Trace where your eyes go first on a selected spread and what you read next. Examine how the placement of narration, images, and speech bubbles affects the order of information and reaction.
38. Form	Discuss the book as an informational picture book that borrows comic dialogue and expressive characterization. Ask why fictionalized speech does not make the scientific statements fictional.
39. Dummy	Have students make a rough folded-paper book dummy for one wombat fact. Place the clue, reveal, and explanation on separate pages, then test whether turning the pages improves clarity or surprise.
40. Passion	Ask which choices suggest enthusiasm for helping readers notice wombats, grounding responses in the book rather than assumptions about the author’s private feelings. Students then choose the wombat detail they most want someone else to understand.

Pace-Write It!

20-minute Pace-Write-It! task: “The Backward Pouch Surprise.” Minutes 0–3: Revisit the book’s information about a wombat’s backward-facing pouch and its connection to digging; establish that the pouch helps keep dirt away from the developing young. Minutes 3–5: Fold paper into four pages and plan a sequence: question, digging clue, pouch reveal, explanation. Minutes 5–12: Draw and write the mini-book, adding one invented animal reaction in a speech bubble. An original opening might be, “How can a digging mother help keep dirt out of her pouch?” Keep the answer hidden until page 3. Minutes 12–16: Partners read aloud, deliberately pausing before the reveal, and identify which words are factual and which are imagined speech. Minutes 16–19: Revise one sentence, picture placement, or page break to improve timing and accuracy. Minutes 19–20: Share a revision and finish the reflection, “I slowed my reader down when ….” K–1 students may dictate and draw; grades 2–3 write short captions; grades 4–5 add a precise explanation and a note identifying the book as their source.

Classroom Activities

Weird, Wonderful Wombat Reveals

Students create a folded-paper mini-book that reveals one surprising wombat fact in stages: a curiosity-building opening, a concealed reveal, and an explanation of why the feature matters. Following Cushman’s blend of information and comic conversation, students add a factual narrator, an animal’s speech bubble, and an illustration. Younger students may draw and dictate; older students independently draft, verify, and revise.

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