Ten Fat Sausages
Michelle Robinson and Tor Freeman
Andersen Press

Come into the kitchen. There a delicious drama is about to unfold.

Atop the cooker, sizzling in a frying pan sit the ten fat sausages of the title.

All of a sudden one explodes with a ‘POP’ and another, alarmed at the event vows not to meet the same fate, and hops out and across the worktop. At first all is ticketty boo but then disaster strikes …

On goes the rhyming tale with the total of sausages rapidly diminishing two by two thanks to some reckless testing of a liquidiser switch, a flying leap onto a ceiling fan, an encounter with the resident moggy who proves to be in hungry mood,

and some foolhardy cavorting that leads the final succulent pair, (with high hopes of their escape plan,)

into a hiding place within “a squishy thing.”

Michelle Robinson’s yummy story based on the much-loved counting down rhyme is sure to become a firm favourite with early years listeners. The irresistible join-in-ability of the text with its oft repeated “HANG on a minute! … Well, I won’t go BANG and I won’t go POP.” and ‘And Sausage Number Two, (Four,Six or Eight) went hop. hop, hop.’ will ensure a supremely noisy story session wherever this is shared with young audiences.

Tor Freeman’s visuals of the whole sorry saga are a visual treat: how she managed to impart such deliciously gigglesome expressions on those bangers is a wonder in itself: every spread is a flavourful slice of comedy.

It certainly had me in fits of giggles; but then, I’m a vegetarian.