Gordon Wins It All
Alex Latimer
Oxford Children’s Books

Another honker of a tale about a goose – the meanest goose on earth – who continues with his endeavours to be a good goose. The trouble is he starts to fantasise about being so good that he becomes Mayor of Grover Gardens. As a result it only takes a kind deed by Mrs Elephant, followed by the unexpected appearance of one of his old cronies from the Meaneest Goose Society to make him start to regress. He organises the first ever Grand Tournament for Grover Gardens residents, planning to win every single event and maybe, just maybe, helped by Anthony’s training schedule, if things go as he hopes, he’ll soon have that mayoral chain of office round his neck. The trouble is the other contestants in the events are rather better at their respective sports than Gordon anticipated.

Has the goose got the prowess at long jump, sprinting and javelin throwing to win, or will he fall victim to temptation and cheat his way success?

With a vital message about honesty, this is a very funny story with Alex Latimer’s superb illustrations adding greatly to the humour: Gordon’s facial expressions and laugh-out loud eyebrows are simply splendid.