This Little Piggy Went Dancing
Margaret Wild and Deborah Niland
Allen & Unwin
This is a delightful, fun-filled, action-packed interpretation of the traditional nursery rhyme This Little Piggy. The various little piggies engage in all manner of the physical activities young children love – dancing, hopping, hula-hooping, scooting, skipping, crawling, sliding, running, jumping, juggling even.

What pleasure they exhibit in these and the other things they do at home such as watering the plants – another favourite of young children, playing with water (ditto), pushing prams,

painting, reading (hurrah!) and teetering around in adult high-heeled shoes.
Deborah Niland’s totally endearing piggies are almost all portrayed as full of exuberance; even some of those who ‘had none’ are enjoying themselves.

And, listeners will delight in the familiar final ‘And this little piggy went Wee, wee, wee, wee, wee …
all the way home!’
As well as being ideal for sharing with the very young, individually

or in an early years setting, this is a great book for those in the early stages of reading to try for themselves, first joining in with an adult and then, gradually taking over the reading themselves. Both illustrations and text have a pattern, there’s a close match between words and pictures and there’s rhythm and repetition – what more can a beginner ask. Oh yes, there are lots of lovely action words too.

Celestine and the Penguins
Penny Ives
Templar Publishing pbk
Celestine, a little duckling is eagerly awaiting the first snowfall of the year. She’s donned her warmest clothes and brought out her sledge but there’s no sign of that white precipitation anywhere. The determined heroine decides to improvise – first with cotton wool balls – too lumpy; handfuls of flour make her cough and just as she’s trying torn up paper, she spies something very surprising. There behind her in the garden is a whole host of baby penguins – lost and delighted to find some ‘snow’. They tell Celestine they were cast adrift far from their parents and carried by the waves until they landed up on the beach, a walk away from Celestine’s home.

Celestine tries her best to entertain her guests but they won’t all fit in the freezer, the ice-lolly skates melt and the frozen pea slide soon becomes pea soup. Off they go upstairs but Mum catches them in the bathroom, and Celestine certainly has some explaining to do.
Time for Mum to take control and before long the baby penguins are safely stowed aboard an explorer’s ship bound for the South Pole. And as the ship departs, Celestine feels a cold, soft something tickling her cheek –

but it isn’t a tear – it’s starting to snow at last.
A cute story with endearing characters, an enterprising heroine and satisfying finale.

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