Tag Chloe Holwill-HUnter

One Button Benny and the Dinosaur Dilemma

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Thank you to Little Door Books for inviting me to participate in the blog tour for the new Benny story; please check out the other participants’ posts.

One Button Benny and the Dinosaur Dilemma
Alan Windram and Chloe Holwill-Hunter
Little Door Books

It’s great to see robot Benny back for a third adventure and what an eventful one it is despite the fact that it’s set on a Friday, which should be more relaxed as it’s when he and his fellow robots get together for their weekly dance party. Moreover, during the last week Benny hasn’t needed to press that large red emergency button on his tummy even once.

Having spent the party morning working on their dance moves, the robots decide they need a bit more practice so off they go to the park. There they hone their boogieing, 

then take a super-high jump, landing simultaneously. This causes a massive THUMP and the ground opens under their feet causing them all to cascade down, down into a deep dark hole.

Time to press that red button, decides Benny; the result being they narrowly escape being smashed to smithereens.
Seemingly however, that is just the start of their troubles for, from the surrounding blackness comes first a grumbling sound 

and then a tremendous ROARRRR. You can probably guess what was making those sounds.

Can Benny’s emergency button save them once again? And can they get back from whence they came in time for that funky Friday night dance party?

Chloe Holwill-Hunter’s engaging illustrations really do turn the robots, especially Benny, into real characters able to dance the night away and to empathise with anyone in need..

Who’s for apple pie?

One Button Benny and the Gigantic Catastrophe / Bad Cat!

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One Button Benny and the Gigantic Catastrophe
Alan Windram and Chloe Holwill-Hunter
Little Door Books

Young robot Benny returns for a new adventure (hurrah! I hear fans shout) and now the Cool Cat competition is fast approaching so, like all his friends, Benny has to get his moggy Sparky super shiny and sparkly for the big event – having done the wretched washing up, that is.

Disaster strikes though, for the next morning every single one of the cats has disappeared. An exhaustive search of the town reveals only a note on the ground: the cats have all been kidnapped.

This certainly warrants the pressing of Benny’s (only to be used in pukka emergencies) red button assures his mum.
Having duly done the deed, something unexpected happens: Benny’s button opens like a door, disgorging two rolled pieces of paper.

There’s only one thing to do if Benny and his friends are to get their pets back safely and that’s work together following the instructions on the paper

and Trojan Horse style, build an enormous scrap metal cat in which to hide and wait for the return of the alien kidnappers who will surely come and steal this massive cat once they hear about it.

And sure enough they do. Fortunately all this cat-napping has made the aliens sleepy and once back on their own planet they fall fast asleep leaving the rescuers to find their missing moggies.

Things don’t go exactly to plan thereafter but I’ll leave Benny and his friends being chased by the wobbly alien cat stealers and you to get hold of a copy of Alan (author) and Chloe – illustrator’s – wacky tale of teamwork, forgiveness and dish washing to discover what happens subsequently.

Bad Cat!
Nicola O’Byrne
Nosy Crow

Nicola O’Byrne’s feline character Fluffykins may have a cute sounding name but this moggy is anything but cute. Indeed he creates a chain of havoc as he knocks down a vase of flowers, tangles up the knitting, unwinds the loo roll, plays havoc with the venetian blind, leaves a large puddle on the floor and that’s not all.

Now I’m not a cat lover, nor am I familiar with cats’ behaviour, but it appears from his expressions that in his boundary pushing actions, Fluffykins knows exactly what he’s doing despite his owner’s warnings and chiding. On the other hand it might just be playful oblivion. In this story Nicola O’Byrne leaves it open for readers to make up their own minds.

With a text addressed directly at the mischievous moggy and so much white space around the action, this latest offering is certainly something altogether different from her previous books.

Young listeners will probably relish Fluffykins sheer devilment; this ailurophobic reviewer certainly would steer clear of his abode.

One Button Benny

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One Button Benny
Alan Windram and Chloe Holwill-Hunter
Little Door Books

Benny’s planet is populated by robots; robots of all shapes and sizes, and each with an array of multi-functional buttons. Benny though is different: he has just a single, central button, a large one bearing a warning that it’s only to be used in an emergency,
The little robot is taunted by his fellow robots who love to show off their button-activated skills.

Longing to press that button of his, Benny looks everywhere for emergency opportunities, but without success.
Then one morning, while pondering his button’s possibilities, he glances outside and sees something is amiss.
In the street it’s panic stations: overnight there’s been an invasion of collectors.
These are small, green aliens that travel the galaxy in search of shiny metal to toss into their massive crunching machine and fashion it into teapots – yes teapots! And it looks as though this is to be the fate of the entire population of Benny’s planet.

Emergency!
There’s only one thing to do in an emergency …

Now it’s Benny’s chance to save the situation. Can he do it? Can he prevent the threatened mechanical mayhem?
Robots, aliens and space are amusingly combined in this sc-fi. tale for early years audiences who will enjoy the metallic characters and have a good laugh at the unlikely teapot fetish of the alien invaders.
Chloe Holwill-Hunter portrayal of a metallic world populated by anthropomorphic robots executed predominantly in burnished shades of greys, black, blue and tan are distinctly otherworldly and have a strangely fascinating appeal.

I’ve signed the charter