The Elephant Who Came For Dinner
Steve Smallman and Joëlle Dreidemy
Little Tiger

The latest of this fun series starts with the three friends, Wolf, Hotpot and Omelette strolling out one starry night when suddenly beautiful music fills the air above the woods. The three follow the spellbinding sounds further into the woods where the trees and bushes have been transformed into all sorts of animal shapes: but who was the maker? Badger (something of a know-all) insists the work was done by a spotty wood-warbler. The friends accompany Badger on a search for the mystery topiarist that Hotpot calls a ‘wobbler’.

However as the evidence emerges, it isn’t at all like smarty-boots Badger has led them to believe – far from it. Despite the confidence with which he asserted his ‘facts’ it was completely false information.

A great way to show children how important it is to interrogate whatever information they receive, no matter the source. Young audiences will love discovering the identity of the creative creature responsible for the singing and the shapes, who joins Hotpot, Wolf and Omelette for a post prandial sing-song that sends the friends off to sleep in the moonlight.

I’ll Love You Till The Crocodiles Smile
Kathryn Cristaldi and Kristina Litten
Harper 360

A bedtime tale with a difference. Jungle animals adult and offspring – kayaking crocs, shaking snakes on zip-wires, slow-crawling sloths sporting yoga pants and chimps sneezing because of clouds of globe-trotting fleas are among those featured in the gentle rhythms of Cristaldi’s gently rhyming text and Kristina Litten’s suitably humorous, mixed-media, digitally created scenes of the creatures preparing for the night. I love the giraffes that might ‘laugh at knock-knock jokes while taking a bath / and sipping sweet tea from a carafe.’

as well as the sneezing chimps – some holding tissues – attempting to extricate the fleas from each other’s backs.

Finally, silly antics over all is peace and quite in the forest with gentle snores emanating from the slumbering animals.

Young children will delight in exploring the various silly antics the animals are engaged in be they featured in the foreground or lurking in the background unmentioned in the words. Whether the story works as a pre-bedtime read rather depends on how much time little humans spend poring over the pictures: maybe two or three slow recitations of the text will do the trick.