OMNIBUS BOOKS
Teachers’ Notes
The Butti Butti
Bunyip
Written by Dianne Bates
Illustrated by Greg Holfeld
Teachers’ Notes by Rae Carlyle
Contents
Introduction………………..…………………………………….
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About the Author/Illustrator….……………………………
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Study Notes for Teachers……….…………………………….
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Teachers’ Notes may be reproduced for use in school activities. They may not be
redistributed for commercial sale or posted to other networks.
Introduction
When reports of a giant and terrifying bunyip being sighted all over Australia start
to hit the news, everyone is concerned - but it is the inhabitants of the tiny town
of Butti Butti that are the most worried, because it is in their part of the country,
just this side of the Great Fence, that the bunyip has been seen the most. Luckily
for everyone, while almost all people would try to avoid such a fearsome creature,
there are some few brave souls who instead want to seek it out and hope to defeat
it. But the bunyip is bigger and hungrier than even the most heroic of the bunyiphunters expect, and one after another they are gobbled, regurgitated, and then
flee for their lives. The question then is what is to be done about the Butti Butti
Bunyip? It seems prepared to keep swallowing and vomiting hopeful heroes forever!
So when the famed explorer Bin Bin Ooligah sets off in search of the Butti Butti
Bunyip, no one expects what happens when he finds it - not even the bunyip!
About the Author
Dianne Bates lives on the south coast of New South Wales with her husband, author Bill
Condon. Dianne has written many books for children and compiles a newsletter for
Australian children’s authors called Buzzwords. www.enterprising words.com.au
About the Illustrator
Greg Holfeld was born and raised on the Canadian prairies, where he filled the long, cold
winters with cartoons, comic books and drawing. He now lives in Adelaide with family,
working as a freelance illustrator and animator. His books include Wolf’s Sunday Dinner, The
Perfect Pet, and Captain Congo and the Crocodile King. He was shortlisted for the CBCA
Crichton Award for book illustrators in 2001.
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Activities
English
The Butti Butti bunyip is described in the story as having a head the size of ten football fields,
a shadow as long as the Great Barrier Reef, and a mouth as wide as Sydney Harbour. No real
creature could ever possible be this big - the author is exaggerating the size of the bunyip to
make the story more interesting. This type of exaggeration is also known as hyperbole.
1) As a class, discuss the use of hyperbole. Points to consider include:
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Why might an author choose to use hyperbole in a story?
What is the effect of the hyperbolic descriptions on your mental image of the bunyip?
In many of the descriptions of the bunyip, the hyperbole is contained in either a
metaphor or a simile. Does all hyperbole have to be in a metaphor or simile?
If the author hadn’t used hyperbolic descriptions, what would the story be like?
Can you think of times that you have heard, or used, hyperbole yourself? (hint: think
about how you might describe feeling very hot, cold, tired, or excited.)
What makes something hyperbole rather than a lie - how can we tell?
2) In pairs or small groups, choose a chapter of the story, and see how many examples you
can find where the author has used hyperbole.
3) Choose a passage from the story, and rewrite it using less colourful descriptive
language, without any hyperbole. For example, you might rewrite the ground shook like
an earthquake beneath its monstrous steps as ‘the ground shook beneath its steps.’
Share your rewritten passage with the class, and discuss the differences between the
two versions. Which is more interesting and exciting, and why?
The use of hyperbole in the descriptions helps make The Butti Butti Bunyip an exciting story
that the author does not expect the readers to actually believe.
4) In pairs or small groups, see how many obviously impossible things you find described in
the story. Share your findings with the class.
5) Individually, write an exciting adventure story of your own in the style of The Butti Butti
Bunyip. Use as much hyperbole and exaggeration in your descriptions as you can, and
make your similes and metaphors as colourful as possible. If your story is believable,
then you will need to add some more fantastic descriptions!
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6) Choose your favourite descriptive phrase from the story. Write a paragraph explaining
what the phrase means, and why it is your favourite.
Science
At the end of the story, Bin Bin Ooligah works out that the bunyip’s problem is that it has
been trying to eat meat, when it should only eat fruit and vegetables. Animals that eat meat
are called carnivores, animals that eat plants are called herbivores, while animals that eat
both are called omnivores.
7) As a class discuss whether you think the bunyip is a carnivore, herbivore, or omnivore.
8) As a class, or in small groups, make a list of all the Australian Native animals that you
can think of.
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Decide whether each animal on the list is a carnivore, a herbivore, or an omnivore. You
may have to do some research in the library or online for some of your animals.
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Look at your list of animals. Which animal on your list do you think most closely
resembles the Butti Butti bunyip? Share with the class why you have chosen the animal
that you did.
9) Research the Australian Native animals that can be found in your local area. Draw a
poster showing how these animals fit into the food chain, and whether they are
carnivores, omnivores, or herbivores. Where do you think the Butti Butti bunyip would
fit into the food chain - or would it be outside the food chain completely?
The Butti Butti bunyip is described in the newspaper as weighing four tonnes.
10) Four tonnes sounds very heavy - but how much is it actually?
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How many kilograms are in a tonne?
How many bags of flour would weigh four tonnes?
How many blocks of butter would weigh four tonnes?
If the average year 1 student in your school weighs 25kg, how many classes of little
kids would you need to make up four tonnes?
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How much does an elephant weigh? Would an elephant be larger or smaller than the
bunyip?
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What other things can you think of that would weigh four tonnes?
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Maths
The population of Butti Butti is said to be 102 people, 603 cats and dogs, and fifty million
flies.
11) Write fifty million as a numeral. How many zeroes does it have?
12) Show the three population categories of Butti Butti (people, cats and dogs, and flies) on
a graph. You can choose to use a bar graph, a pie graph, or any other graph that you
think will show the contrast between people and animals easily.
13) What is the population of your town, city, or home area? Is it larger or smaller than the
population of Butti Butti? Create a graphic display that shows the size of your local
area’s population in comparison to the population of Butti Butti.
14) In pairs or small groups, survey the classes in your school. Have each group choose a
different class to survey. Count the number of students in each class, and ask each
student how many pets they have. As a class collate your survey results to find out what
your school population is, and what your school pet population is. Are there more or
children at your school than there are people in Butti Butti? Does your school
collectively have more pets than Butti Butti does? For a challenge, also collect
information on the types of pets that students have, and create a graph showing how
many of each type of pet is owned by students.
Geography
On pages 8 and 9, there is a map of Australia showing places where the Butti Butti bunyip
has been sighted. The list of place names is in alphabetical order, and has one Australian
place named for every letter of the alphabet.
15) Using an atlas, or a large map, make an alphabetical list of Australian place names of
your own. Find one place for every letter of the alphabet, and try to avoid using any
places that have been listed in the book. As a challenge, see if you can make a complete
alphabet list from places in your state or territory. You can use city, town, district, or
suburb names.
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16) Make a map of your own that is similar to the one on pages 8 and 9. Mark the places
from your list in exercise 15 above on the map, and arrange the names in alphabetical
order.
17) Redraw the map on pages 8 and 9 so that the place names are no longer listed in
alphabetical order, but instead are located as close as possible to their location on the
map. Which map is the most confusing? Why do you think this?
18) On page 7, several places where the bunyip has been seen are mentioned. Locate these
places on a map of Australia. Which place is the closest to where you live?
Butti Butti is described as being just this side of the Great Fence, while the story also
mentions Sandgroper Country in the west, and the east coast where the Banana Benders live.
19) Looking at a map of Australia, can you identify where the real life equivalent of the
Great Fence is located? (Hint: if you research the Rabbit Proof Fence you should be able
to find a map showing the location.)
20) Which locations do you think Sandgroper Country , and the place where the Banana
Benders live might be based on? You may need to do some research online or in the
library to work it out.
- Share your theory with the class, and see if your classmates agree with you.
- Is there more than one possible location for either of these places? Why do you think
this?
21) Individually, choose a place in Australia, and invent an appropriate name or description
that could have been used for it if it had appeared in the story. As a class, draw a map of
Australia, and mark all your inventive place names on it.
Creative Activities
22) Write your own inventive description of a bunyip. Read all the passages where the
bunyip is described in the story, and use them as inspiration for your own bunyip. Make
your description of your bunyip as imaginative and detailed as possible, and be sure to
use lots of adjectives!
23) Research bunyips and their place in traditional indigenous stories. Where do they live,
what do they look like, and how do they behave? Create a poster or powerpoint
presentation about bunyips to share with the class.
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24) Find another story about bunyips in the school library and read it.
25) Use acrylic paints to paint a bunyip in its natural environment. You might want to have a
bunyip that stands out from the background, or you can choose to have it camouflaged
and difficult to spot.
26) Make pumpkin soup, or pumpkin scones.
27) If a bunyip was hiding somewhere in your local area, where would be a good place for it
to lurk? Go for a walk around your school or local area and see if you can find any places
that might be good places for a bunyip to live.
28) Plant a pumpkin patch, and see how big your pumpkins grow. Warning - you will need a
LOT of space for the pumpkin vines!
29) The twist at the end of the story is the fact that the bunyip is actually a herbivore. What
other twists could the author have used to create a happy ending? Write an alternative
ending to the story using a different twist.
30) Make an acrostic using the place names listed in the story.
31) Make a model of the Butti Butti bunyip using papier-mâché.
32) Act out The Butti Butti Bunyip as a play. You can perform it at assembly or for another
class.
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