Mole Hill
Alex Latimer
Oxford University Press
Alex Latimer has brilliantly combined two of young children’s favourite picture book topics into one splendid rhyming tale – Mole Hill.
Mole and his two children live happily in their cosy subterranean home until one morning the foul stench of diesel fumes pervades their molehill.
Mole surfaces to investigate and what he sees fills him with horror. There before him are three enormous trucks, Dozer grim and yellow, even larger, bright orange Excavator and a smaller red toughie, Loader.
As they move towards Mole’s mound with their scary sound Mole surprises the machines by taking a stand.
He issues a challenge to the threatening threesome
following it with some quick thinking and an instruction to dig for the bones of his last adversary.
What they unearth scares the daylights out of them
causing them to beat a very hasty retreat.
Safely back home Daddy Mole regales the event to the little moles. They however armed with some bedtime reading, are ready to challenge the veracity of his machine-scaring story.
The scale of Mole’s task is highlighted in Alex’s bright, bold images of the huge machines towering over the diminutive hero and I love too the sprinkling of minibeast onlookers that adorn every spread.