The empty spaces of the Australian Outback are magical. In the isolation stands the Spirit Rock of Uluru, a sacred place to both the clans of Man and the animals that explore Australia in the Dreamtime before history. Then, Earth is new, and Man and the animals live in harmony with each other. Yet life is not easy. The ground is barren and water scarce. Animals eat each other. Friends need to stay together to survive. And always looming nearby is the dreaded evil...the Goori Goori Bird. Meet Piddle, the playful platypus lass just looking for mates to have fun with, Lulu, a shy koala, Gru, the out-and-about young kangaroo, and Cookie, the crazy kookaburra. Then, there's Crank-or Charles, as he prefers to be called-the biggest, meanest, crocodile ever. He has a sense of humor second to none, so he thinks. Man befriends them all, sharing his ancestral Dreamtime stories and learning their ways in return while the group does a walk-about in the Red Center of Australia. Along comes Burtie, a wombat who already knows everything that anyone should know. And Winston, the eccentric echidna, following a spider web to kill the Goori Goori Bird. Come along for an adventure in Dreamtime.
RJ Biggar is an American doctor (specializing in children) who lives near Washington DC. In preparation for this book, he spent two years traveling all over Australia, sleeping the canyons of the Outback, camping on Kangaroo Island, hiking through crocodile-infested streams in Kakadu National Park, and swimming along the Great Barrier Reef. He has written 4 other novels and plays for children.
