The Bunyip of Berkeley's Creek

The bunyip in Berkeley's creek emerges one night, dark and muddy and wondering who he is. And when a passing platypus proclaims him a bunyip, he wanders on, asking a wallaby, an emu, and a man, in turn, what bunyips look like. All their answers, alas, are unflattering (a judgment verified by the pictures), but that no longer matters when the bunyip comes across another large and muddy creature, this one a female bunyip, emerging from another billabong. This commonplace piece of business was named 1974's Best Picture Book in Australia, where the animals are certainly indigenous - but not the sterile art work, which is all in burnished tones covered over with fine black lines and pretentiously laid out in frames and boxes. Overdecorated, underachieved. (Kirkus Reviews)