The Magic Island Gang by Judith Lydia Mercure

When an ambitious Zoo Director decides to make his zoo one of the world’s peak tourist experiences, he calls on Sammy Snatch, a ruthless animal smuggler, for help. But Director Deluge doesn’t count on some of Sammy’s victims—the larrikin cockatoo, Jock; the solitary yellow-eyed penguin, Solomon; the revolutionary Liberty Wombat; the larcenous Pilfer Possum; and the Zoo’s poetic star, Chilli Koala—who are not pleased to find themselves in a frosty coastal Zoo a long way from home. Can this desperate Gang pull off an ingenious caper, elude the police, zookeepers, security guards, and even the Air Force to find their way home--when a ruthless gang of criminals is on their trail, waiting to ambush them?