Surprise party for a koala flash fiction

Surprise Party for a Koala

42 Replies

Carrot Ranch flash fiction challenge Koala

Last week at the Carrot Ranch, Charli Mills challenged writers to In 99 words (no more, no less) write a story about a koala in a kingdom. You can create a character out of Norah’s koala and give it a Vermont adventure. Or you can make up a story however you want! Can you pull off a BOTS (based on a true story)? Go where the prompt leads!

While most prompts run for just one week, this one runs for two as Charli has been in Vermont conducting the inaugural and very successful Carrot Ranch Writers’ Refuge.

A Kingdom for a Koala flash fiction

Although I submitted A kingdom for a Koala in response to the prompt last week, I thought I’d have another go this week. The koala is one of my favourite Australian animals and also the animal emblem of my home state Queensland.

Koala Lou by Mem Fox

I always list Koala Lou by Mem Fox among my (many) favourite picture books. (You can listen to Mem read it by following that link.)

Little koala's party

Little Koala’s Party — a story for problem solving is one of my favourite readilearn teaching resources. The story engages children in helping Little Koala work out the number of guests and items required for her party. They can then use the same strategies to organise a party of their own. I always loved the illustrations that were done by an artist I met on 99designs.

That’s a lot of favourites so how could I not write another koala story? I decided that, for this week’s story, I would link Charli’s prompt with thoughts of a party. I hope you like it.

Surprise Party for a Koala

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Little Koala’s eyes pinged open.

There it was again. BANG! BANG!

She stretched, clambered down the tree and headed towards the noise.

She stopped under possum’s tree and peered into the branches.

“What’s going on here?”

Possum peeked out, glancing left and right. “Nothing.”

“Tell me!”

“Nothing. Go away.”

Koala scrambled up the tree. “What’re you doing?”

Possum grimaced, pointing to a sign.

“You know I can’t read yet.”

Possum placed a crown on Koala’s head. “It was supposed to be a surprise. Happy birthday.”

Koala felt special as a princess when all her friends arrived.

Thank you blog post

Thank you for reading. I appreciate your comments. Please share your thoughts.

42 thoughts on “Surprise Party for a Koala”

    1. Norah Post author

      Aw, you’re so sweet, Susan, thank you. The cover of a story I wrote and available as a digital story on readilearn is the one towards the end of the post called “Little Koala’s Party”. The one at the top of my post with the post’s title on it includes an image (the koala but nothing else) from the book but isn’t the cover. I hope that makes sense. Thanks for asking. 🙂

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  6. roughwighting

    SO sweet. How could it not be sweet, with a Koala bear and a Norah 99-word story? I love the idea of possum trying to nail up a sign. Well done. (Cute illustrations you made too.) I’m sad to say I’ve never seen a real Koala bear, but the way you write of them here, and the book you love so much, makes me wish I could hope on a plane to Australia.

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    1. Norah Post author

      Thanks, Pam. I appreciate your kind words of support. And please hop on that plane and come down to visit me here. I’ll take you to meet a little koala. 🙂

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