Koala Fairies by Anna Pignataro

Title: Koala Fairies

Author: Anna Pignataro

Genre: Fantasy

Publisher: Scholastic Australia

Published: 1^st September 2025

Format: Hardback

Pages: 24

Price: $19.99

Synopsis: In a faraway place, where the bush meets the sea, live two little friends in the eucalypt tree … Say hello to adorable Koala Fairy friends, Cookie and Clover. Together, they look after the whole neighbourhood! When Banksia Bush needs help, Cookie and Clover set off on a lively search-and-find adventure to help save the day.

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Welcome to Banksia Bush, where the Australian bush meets fairies and magic. Two very special koala fairies called Cookie and Clover are ready to help their neighbourhood. They need to bake something, but they can’t find all the ingredients! Can you help them in this fun search-and-find adventure to save the day and bring magic back to Banksia Bush?

Koala Fairies combines the joy of reading and the fun of search and find books in a joyful new picture book that is uniquely Australian. The combination of the Australian bush and wildlife with fairies, something that could be seen as traditionally British or European works very well. It’s pure magic and joy in one delightful package.

Search-and-Find books can be fun and engaging for children. The most common ones are Where’s Wally, and various licensed books. They’re lots of fun, but there’s a special joy in uniquely Australian books that capture something about Australia. Each one will do this differently with all sorts of themes and topics, but they will always celebrate or showcase something amazing about Australia. And Australian fantasy is lots of fun, because it captures the beauty of the Australian environment.

The search-and-find pages are bookended by the main story, so it guides readers into the searching, and gives them a fun and satisfying resolution to the story they have just read, because they get to see how what they have found and where it fits in with the story. It’s fun and a great way to get kids involved in reading an interactive book like this. It was a joy to read, and I think readers aged 3 and over will love it. as an adult, I loved it because it was a slightly different take on the search-and-find books I have seen before. Creating a story around all of this shows that there are so many ways to tell a story, and this is just one amazing way to do so.