Finding Mister Tibbles
Emma Yarlett
Walker Books

It’s Tibbles rather than Nibbles that is the subject of the search in Emma Yarlett’s new picture book. Mister Tibbles goes missing one Monday morning and the small boy narrator has looked all over the place, so he tells readers. To alert others to his being absent the boy makes reward posters and goes out distributing them as well as calling on neighbours in case the missing canine creature is hiding close by. The first visit is to Bobbie Plod and Officer Wag and despite having not seen Mister T. they have noticed a strange smell emanating from upstairs. The two invite the boy in for a snack and to look around. There’s certainly a strange smell but no Mister Tibbles.

The next stop is at Number 2, home of two clowns. They too invite the boy in to search but there’s no sign of Mister Tibbles. The same is so at Number 3, Wylde West’s residence, though he has seen a wriggly tail upstairs. No luck as to its identity however.

In Number 4 accessed by water, lives Coral. In dives the boy in the hope that the stripy thing she’s seen splashing around is he whom he’s searching for; it’s stripy but it is not Mister Tibbles. Number 5 is a castle with a drawbridge, home to a dragon of the friendly kind who provides yummy toasted marshmallow sandwiches and a strange orange thing but no Mister Tibbles, not even in the turrets. Not anywhere at all; he’s lost forever.

Back walks the narrator towards his home and suddenly a familiar smell emanates from the canopy of a tree; that and a stripy, orange tail wriggling through the leaves. Could it be? … Maybe it’s time for a welcome back home celebration at last.

With it’s fun final twist, this is a story that involves young children right from the start with various flaps to open and the wealth of details inside the residences to explore.