The Wombles

Humans are disgustingly messy.The wombles are cute furry little anthropomorphic intelligent things that live on Wimbledon common, as a small family organisation.Their thing is that they go around dealing with all the rubbish that gets left around. Entertaining enough with an obvious message for them kids.

Published back in 1968, this was the very first of five Wombles novels written by Elisabeth Beresford. It's a well crafted, witty, and endearing work, intended for the older reader (8-11) and establishes the Wombles as the inventive, cunning and ecologically minded creatures that have charmed the hearts of millions. The TV series that followed watered down some of the detail and narrative in this book to suit the attention span and comprehension of younger viewers, but this is the Wombles as they were originally conceived. In fact, if all you have known of the Wombles is their TV series and short story picture books, then you are in for a bit of a surprise as you will find them to be far more sophisticated and inspired characters than one would gather from the TV series. In addition, without belabouring the point too strongly, Elisabeth Beresford manages to call attention to the wastefulness and alienation of human society, contrasting it against the resourcefulness and camaraderie of the Wombles. This was one of the very first childrens' books to introduce ecological concerns into its narrative and it succeeds without being "preachy". Come to think of it, the Womble maxim of "making good use of bad rubbish" has never been more appropriate or timely than for our own society...