Tag Chronicle Books

Board Book Beauties

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What Does Doggy Want?
David Wojtowycz
Walker Books
Clever design, bright visuals, an endearing character and a simple repeating patterned text combine to make a delightfully playful, interactive book for babies. By placing a finger in the hole and moving it up and down, small hands can make the Doggy shake his head to say “NO”

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to various items offered until at last, he gets exactly what he’s been waiting for;

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and then he nods his head affirmatively.
The same formula works for a companion volume

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What Does Monkey Want?
David Wojtowycz
Walker Books
In this instance a series of actions is suggested all of which receives a “No”

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(A side-to-side movement is needed this time) because, as we eventually discover, Monkey just wants to …

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In addition to enjoying a simple story, these two books offer the very young opportunities for the development of manipulative skills.

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All Shook Up!
Alain Crozon
Chronicle Books
Manipulative opportunities abound in this playful board book that features animals of all shapes and sizes. You can make the chick flutter its feathers, the butterfly flap its wings up and down,

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the elephant swing its trunk and shake its ears, or the hippo poke out its tongue, for instance.
Primary colours (and black and white) are used to great effect in this rapping, rhyming flap book.

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Chooky-doodle-doo
Jan Whiten and Sinéad Hanley
Walker Books
‘One Little chooky chick/pulling at a worm. /Clucky cluck, worm’s stuck./What should chooky do?’
Thus begins an enormously appealing board book that combines counting fun, rhyme and a delicious final twist. Oh! and there’s teamwork too.

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I love the slightly acid tones and the textural effects of Sinéad Hanley’s amusing illustrations.
Just the thing to share with the youngest listeners.

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Bad Behaviour and Good

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Rude Cakes
Rowboat Watkins
Chronicle Books
If you’re looking for a quirky take on manners bad and good, then this entirely crazy confection is certainly one you should bite into. The tale shows what happens when the two-tiered character of the title – a far from sweet, indeed thoroughly ill-mannered, badly behaved object – that bullies and totally disrespects his four-tiered parents is whisked away

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to a place inhabited by Giant Cyclopses and one of their number starts sporting “Rudey” as my audience named him as a ‘jaunty little hat.’

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From upon a Cyclops’ head, the cake discovers a completely new way of being: one where sharing, politeness and respect for one’s elders is the thing and is then returned, a reformed character, to his bedroom safe and altogether sweeter.
Watkins has used watercolours in pastel shades, and delicate lines, to portray his wonderfully silly cakey characters and somehow manages to create sufficient solidity and gravitas in the Cyclopses to give them a powerful presence, a presence that began in the form of a toy stolen from a chocolate cupcake and a poster above the chief protagonist’s bed. (Observant readers will have noticed these.)

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And the moral of the tale? Well, that’s pretty clear but the deliciously playful manner of telling means that there’s no preaching. Rather the whole thing is a cleverly concocted metaphor showing how greater forces for good can prevail.
Would that it were so in our world of conflicts and catastrophes.
Powerful stuff: I wonder what Watkins will cook up next.

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A Gold Star for George
Alice Hemming and Kimberley Scott
Maverick Arts Publishing
I’m not a fan of the rewards and punishments system that is so prevalent in schools but I have to applaud, and wholeheartedly endorse George Giraffe’s endeavours in this story, set in The Heavenly Hippos Wildlife Park.
When the notice announcing Heavenly Hippos Gold Star Awards is posted George ponders the possibilities of getting a shiny gold star for that special place on his fence.

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He’s always on hand to assist his pals in their endeavours but could he be a winner? All the other animals have talents to display but George cannot win that category; what about the most stylish animal perhaps? No – that’s goes to the only unadorned of the animals.
It’s a somewhat downhearted George that celebrates his pals’ prizes but goes to sleep without one of his own. What then is that sound he hears on waking … and that bright twinkle? …

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Kindness and consideration win through in this story, which I envisage being shared as a prelude to circle time sessions in early years settings especially. Amusingly expressive illustrations grace every spread and celebrate an endearing character.

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A Camping Trip & A Visit to the Pool

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Eddie’s Tent and How to go Camping
Sarah Garland
Frances Lincoln Children’s Books
We join Eddie and his family as they head through the busy traffic to their seaside destination for a camping holiday. Once there, the whole family is pretty much ready for bed – after the tent’s been erected that is. Next morning Eddie is up first and heads down to a deserted, peaceful beach;

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but soon breakfast calls so he collects driftwood for the cooking fire and preparations are quickly under way for their first meal of the holiday.
Once the whole family has made everything “shipshape”, Eddie decides to make his own tent, with the help of some of the useful things he’d stowed away in his rucksack before leaving home. (A resourceful boy is young Eddie.) Soon it’s time for lunch – fish and chips are the order of the day and as he tucks in to his, Eddie strikes up a friendship with Max, who is fishing, and his dog, Bouncer.
Max lends Eddie his rod and line and Eddie is amazed when he hooks a large fish – just the thing for a tasty supper.
When the family returns to the campsite, they take a different route from whence they came (that one the ever resourceful Eddie had mapped on his trusty pad)

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and on the way, they re-encounter a distraught Max and his granddad. Bouncer has gone missing, they hear and so a hunt begins. It’s a good thing Eddie has taken along his compass as well as that notebook with the map, for the two boys need both to help them find their way back along the old route. Oh, and Eddie just happened to have his whistle too – just the thing for calling to a lost dog and happily it works.

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Before long, there’s Bouncer back safe in Max’s arms.
All’s well that ends well – and it does – with a celebratory fish supper – and more – shared by all.

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This longish, engaging, beautifully illustrated story has kept my audiences of 4 to 7s riveted throughout each telling and prompted a telling of a whole lot of camping tales of their own.
I’m sure some of them could well have done with the tips, recipes and other suggestions helpfully supplied at the end of this delightful, family-centred book. What better way to initiate the young into the joys of camping?

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Pool
JiHyeon Lee
Chronicle Books
Discover what happens when two shy children – a boy and a girl – encounter one another at a very busy swimming pool. Clearly, water is an element in which they both feel at home. Dive in with them and let your imagination take ’float’ as they swim among shoals of fish,

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seahorses and more. With surprising encounters,

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scary moments and opportunities just to drift and contemplate, this powerful visual tale takes a look at friendship and celebrates the power of the imagination in a sequence of muted, softly hued scenes
Seemingly simple but forceful in impact, no words are needed to create the many magical and memorable moments conjoured up here in Korean artist JiHyeon,’s debut picture book.

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Spins on Cinderella

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Interstellar Cinderella
Deborah Underwood and Meg Hunt
Chronicle Books
This Cinderella with a cosmic twist is irresistible. I’m a real fan of fairy tale spin offs and certainly was not disappointed by this one. The heroine is cast as a strong, brainy, mechanically minded female who studies rocket ship repair by night, so determined is she to follow her dreams and become an engineer. And so she does. But first, with a bit of help from her fairy godrobot in fixing her own craft,

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she has to use her trusty socket wrench to perform a skilled overhaul of the prince’s spacecraft that has malfunctioned.
Of course said prince, having discovered they have such a lot in common, does fall in love with his saviour, seeks her out and proposes but then it wouldn’t be Cinderella if he didn’t. And being an independent young miss, this Cinderella when she does come face to face with her suitor, having chased after him to reclaim her lost wrench, turns down his offer of marriage but agrees to something much more appealing …

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It’s told in jaunty verse that reads aloud beautifully (love the sonic wordplays) and illustrated with appropriate verve and vigour by Meg Hunt whose choice of colour palette is superb, as is her attention to detail. And those endpapers are genius. The characterization too is terrific – that robot mouse, Murgatroyd is just brilliant and demonstrated thus: ‘Cinderella struggled but the space rope held her tight, till Murgatroyd’s robotic teeth cut through it with one bite.’

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Assuredly a Cinderella of the future; but very much one of the present too – if the positive reactions of my audiences of 5s to 9s are anything to go by.

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Cinderella’s Sister and the Big Bad Wolf
Lorraine Carey and Migy Blanco
Nosy Crow
Cinderella has a third sister, Gertie in this twisted fairy tale and it’s she who does all the chores not Cinderella (a thoroughly lazy sort who just looks on and lets her kind sis slave away while she does nothing more than paint her nails.) Not that all this drudgery seems to spoil Gertie from whom niceness shines forth at all times. Consequently the rest of the Ugly family members keep her out of sight. So, when an invitation inviting them all to a Grand Ball arrives, young Gertie begs to be allowed to attend.

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Mrs Ugly reluctantly agrees and Gertie is duly dispatched to the Wicked Queen to receive a crash course in nastiness.
Her arrival coincides with the Wicked Queen’s attempted poisoning of Snow White with an apple, a plan young Gertie duly foils, infuriating her supposed instructor who sends her back home forthwith to an equally furious mother who agrees to give Gertie another chance at being bad Ugly sister. This time she is sent to the Worst Witch of all and again she foils a murderous plan

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and is once more returned whence she came. However, she’s given one last chance to redeem herself and off she goes to the ‘meanest and nastiest baddie of all’ … .

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Again though, Gertie cannot stop herself mid-lesson and she scuppers the Wolf’s dastardly doings too. Seemingly, she’s about to become his dinner instead however, till she mentions the Ball that is. And from then on, things take a decided turn for the better – for the Wolf and Gertie that is: but not entirely for Cinderella although she does get to go to the ball, thanks to a timely wave of a Fairy Godmother’s wand. A wonderful time is had by all and a wedding occurs soon after. And the fate of Mrs Ugly and the other two Ugly sisters? Well, nobody really knows exactly why they disappeared from the scene but …

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A wonderful time too, was had by all when I shared this one with various groups of under sevens who relished the mixing of several tales and particularly appreciated Gertie’s thwarting of all the wicked plans and Cinderella’s unexpected transformation.

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How to Read a Story

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How to Read a Story
Kate Messner and Mark Siegel
Chronicle Books
‘In my beginning is my end.’ – that profound, oft quoted line from T.S.Eliot’s East Coker is the essence of this amusing look at readers’ joys of discovering a love of reading, which is of course, the beginning of – one hopes – a lifelong journey of, explorations and enchantment, delight and endless discoveries.
I am somebody who wants all children to begin their learning to read journey with picture books (along with lots of talking, rhymes and poems) and this book nurtures that notion being essentially, a 10-step lesson on how to read a picture book. So, to Step 1 ‘FIND A GOOD STORY.’ Seemingly the dog has already made the choice – tick.

 

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STEP 2 ‘FIND A READING BUDDY.’ – the book’s finder is sufficiently snuggly. Job done.
On to STEP 3 ‘FIND A COSY READING SPOT.’ – plenty of options there, but …

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Back to the book – or rather the front (cover). Lots can be gleaned from this. That’s STEP 4 taken care of … now for the really exciting part:
STEP 5 ‘OPEN THE BOOK’ and essentially, begin reading (or should that be, making meaning?) Hang on, it’s not my book … let’s begin then, “Once upon a time …” – yippee! We’re off into another world peopled with amazing characters.

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(How cleverly the makers of the book orchestrate the reading with character snaps and different fonts. – STEP 6).
STEP 7 – make sure your partner can see the pictures – definitely important if it’s a picture book of course.
STEP 8’s about tricky words. Use picture cues – agreed. Sounding them out – that’s the words – OK but as a last resort.
The next bit’s really important Not actually a step, rather a kind of time out and concerns anticipation and prediction of what might come.

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– Love it!
Vocalisation is the crux of STEP 9 – make exciting parts sound exciting.
Oh no, we’re nearly there: quick keep turning the pages and find out how the story ends … and STEP 10 – we’re there … say,

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Well, not quite for as I said, that’s really only the beginning. You can … go back and start again (if it was a good story – like this one surely is) or find another. Well, that too, But, do the former, I’d suggest. It’s such fun and more … and …
From cover to cover, this is a delight. I love the playful nature of the whole thing – so important in any learner experience. (Oops! the teacher bit of me needs to shut up again.) I love the way the silent cast of characters (all engaged elsewhere at the outset) is gradually drawn in and become participants in the whole shared reading experience. I love the way those characters, and all the others, are portrayed in those watercolour and ink illustrations of Siegel; and how they and their roles serve to further engage and delight readers and listeners. A book to celebrate.

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Golden Domes, Perfection and More

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Golden Domes and Silver Lanterns
Hena Khan and Mehrdokht Amini
Chronicle Books pbk
In this lovely book, a young Muslim girl narrator shares with readers the colours and objects that are a part of her everyday life. She starts with the red prayer mat her father uses five times a day when he faces towards Mecca to pray,

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then we see her mum’s blue hijab, the glowing gold of the mosque dome and minarets, the white kufi (the cap her Grandpa wears), the black ink she uses to write Allah in Arabic letters. The verses continue: “Brown is a date,/ plump and sweet/ During Ramadan,/it’s my favourite treat.” Orange is the colour of the henna designs made on the hands,

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purple an Eid gift, the zakat box filled with money given to charity during Eid is yellow, the Quran has a green cover, and finally, there is a shiny silver fanoos (lantern).
There is also a glossary which gives succinct explanations of the Islamic terms used and the end papers show beautiful Islamic patterns.
In addition to being a great introduction to the world of Islam, this is an important book now when there is so much misunderstanding and misconception about, and prejudice against, Muslims and their faith (which is essentially peaceful). Here a loving Muslim family is shown in a positive light going about their everyday activities in peace and harmony. Beautiful Islamic designs and patterns abound throughout – on clothes, buildings and other objects:

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these are universal and could as easily be found in the UK, India, the USA, the Middle East or any part of the world where there is a Muslim community.
This one should definitely be in every early years classroom or nursery to be shared, enjoyed and discussed.

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Nobody’s Perfect
David Elliott and Sam Zuppardi
Walker Books
As he sits on his bottom stair, a boy shares with readers, his thoughts about perfection – or rather imperfection. Gigi, his little sister is extremely noisy; his best friend, Jack is a bit of a show-off and his mum stubbornly refuses to listen when he explains that it’s his dog Ralphie that should be sitting on the “naughty step” for sleeping on our narrator’s bed, not he himself.
The narrator however, does put his hands up to his main imperfection – messiness

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and there’s certainly no getting away from that one. Messiness however, can lead to creativity and

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the  narrator definitely knows it.
Actually though, Jack’s showing off can sometimes be fun, as can Gigi’s cacophony

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and even Mum has times when she does listen and that’s pretty good. Seemingly near perfection will suffice after all.
I love Zuppardi’s exuberant, scribbly style illustrations with their bright acrylic backgrounds and the first person narration works well though there is a slight inconsistency in the pattern of telling.

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I Wish You More
Amy Krouse Rosenthal and Tom Lichtenheld
Chronicle Books
This little book is brimming over with good wishes – literally.

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Every single one of these wishes is one I’d want to give to a young child, indeed to anyone young or old. They are wishes for inner and outer happiness and peace: ‘more ups than downs’, ’ more give than take’,

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‘more we than me’ , ‘more hugs than ughs’, ‘more will than hill.’ I particularly like the reflective

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And …

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Small things? Yes, some perhaps, but profoundly big in impact.
Powerfully and playfully positive and full of love, with occasionally tricky, semantic wordplays that may well need explaining to the very young.
A little gem and one that could be given at birth, a naming, as a valentine’s gift or even perhaps, a wedding.

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Pets Lost, Pets Found

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My Pet Book
Bob Staake
Andersen Press pbk
Imagine having a book as a pet – not possible? Well then you need to get hold of
Staake’s wonderfully crazy tribute to books and young bibliophiles.
The young boy protagonist in this story wants a pet, but not one like a dog or cat; he doesn’t care for the former, the latter make him sneezy (me too).
“A book would make the perfect pet!” his mother advises so off he goes to the Smartytown local bookshop where he discovers just the thing: a small ‘frisky red hardcover!’

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Oh joy! It never makes any demands on our hero – no eating, drinking, pooping (naturally) no fleas, no bathing, easy to take walking,

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doesn’t make a sound and best of all it’s full of wonderful tales to inhabit. The two are practically inseparable.
But then oh woe! The boy comes back from school one day to discover the book has gone – given to a charity shop by the well-meaning maid. Off dash maid and boy hoping to retrieve the book but, where is it? Certainly not where it should have been – on the bookshelves, or even with the coats, lamps or bears. Tears ensue but then the maid has a brainwave: the hiding place is discovered,

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the book retrieved (none the worse for its experience) and, boy and book reunited, back home they all go.
Bonkers? Yes assuredly, but Staake so cleverly demonstrates in his crazy rhyming caper with those mega-bright, digitally manipulated illustrations packed with daft details and ebullient extras, what Clyde Watson’s poem ‘A book is a place’ says ‘Just open a book and step in.’ With this one, you’ll be glad you did.

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Farewell Floppy
Benjamin Chaud
Chronicle Books
This story concerns abandonment or rather, a boy’s attempts at same.
The young boy narrator introduces his pet rabbit, Floppy and then proceeds to explain why he can no longer keep him as a best friend “I’m not a baby.” he tells us. “So I had to let him go.” Has he been reading Hansel and Gretel one wonders as we hear of his intentions “to take him far enough into the woods that he couldn’t find his way back all alone.”
Floppy however, is his usual procrastinatory self and progress is very slow. Eventually, deep in the forest, the boy finds a tree in a clearing and it’s there that a now somewhat reluctant parting takes place; but that’s only after some determined action on the boy’s part:

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He ties his rabbit to a tree with a length of unravelled sweater wool

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and beats a hasty retreat.
Before long though, struck by anxiety and remorse, back goes the narrator only to discover nothing but a length of wool tied around the tree. Tension mounts as he dashes through the forest sending crows flying as he follows a trail that leads him …

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… eventually to a small cabin.
Therein – joy of joys – he discovers his beloved pet ably cared for by a little girl. (The same girl he’d spied earlier during his losing Floppy attempts.)

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Reunited, somewhat shamed, and with some new knowledge, boy and bunny take the route back home – together.
Poignant and perverse, thought provoking and infused with a playful humour, this longish narrative might alarm some pet lovers but only if they misunderstand the tale as a whole.

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(The five to sevens I’ve shared it with certainly have enthused about it.) Chaud’s warmth and mischievousness permeate his gorgeous illustrations, perfectly illuminating the boy’s changing feelings; Floppy though appears totally unmoved by the entire adventure.

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Up in the Garden and Down in the Dirt

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Up in the Garden and Down in the Dirt
Kate Messner and Christopher Silas Neal
Chronicle Books
A little girl narrator shares with readers a season in the garden. Beginning in the springtime and with her hands clutching seeds, the girl is eager to start planting. Her Nana however cautions her to wait for the ground to warm and dry out.

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Meanwhile there’s much to learn about happenings under the ground. “Down in the dirt is a whole busy world of earthworms and insects, digging and building and stirring up soil.” she is told and more. Above ground too there is work to be done – human work, weeding and composting until it’s time to plant.
As spring turns to summer, tiny shoots appear and pea blossoms bloom – a boon for honeybees and wasps, while down below there’s more activity, plant and animal.

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Gardening can be hot work so it’s a good job Nana has a sense of humour and the hose …

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Through the summer there is food in abundance for both humans and small animals and soon it’s time to harvest the squash and cucumbers. Come September the sunflowers are in their full daytime glory

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and at night the orb web spider is busy spinning to catch her night-time prey.
With that autumn chill in the air, the two need to finish collecting the harvest overground while the ants are busy beneath them storing food against the winter cold. Before long the garden has its first frost and down in the dirt beetles burrow, ants scurry and earthworms curl themselves up to sleep.

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In wonderfully poetic words, Messner proceeds to remind us that, even though ‘the wind smells like winter … the ripe days of summer still rest in the garden beds’ and the insects ‘dream of sunshine and blossoms and sprouts.’ : a new garden awaits the spring under the bare trees and down in the dirt.
There is just so much to celebrate about this beautiful book: the manner in which the two artists – one verbal, the other visual have worked in harmony with one another and nature to create this garden in a book: a garden that one wants to share, to visit and to reproduce. It’s a celebration too of the relationship between old and young, the peace to be found in a garden through the changing seasons and much more.
Both author and artist show such amazing attention to detail: the whole thing is just a joy to have and to share. The colours of the mixed media illustrations are gorgeous, the language lyrical, the production and design excellent and there is also an author’s note about the communal nature of any garden, suggestions for further reading and the final pages are devoted to short paragraphs giving details about the garden animals – residents and visitors.
Celebrate words, celebrate pictures; celebrate nature, celebrate life – that’s what this book so subtly teaches us. As Robert Frost says, ‘I shan’t be gone long. – You come too’.

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Underwear and Upper Wear

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Polar Bear’s Underwear
tupera tupera
Chronicle Books
I was reluctant to divest Polar Bear of those red underpants he sports on the cover of this corker of a book but without so doing, it was impossible to join in the ‘chuddies’ hunt and anyway, their glowing colour is part of the beguilement.
PB has a real problem for, not only is a vital item of his clothing missing, but he cannot remember the colour of the particular underwear he was supposedly wearing that day. Hmm – tricky one: it’s as well his trusty Mouse friend is on hand (or rather head)

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to help with the search.
Off they go together perusing all manner of pairs – striped ones – no they’re Zebra’s, foodie ones – oops no! Pig has those on; and it definitely can’t be those teeny tiny floral ones – of course not, they fit only Butterfly.

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Perhaps it’s those fetching pink ones – uh-oh! On second thoughts …

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But it cannot possibly be the spotty, ruffled ones, nor the topsy-turvy pair so PB, what about these …

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Foolish creature – how could you forget?  It’s a good job there’s a song to finish the sorry saga.
Clever die cuts strategically placed, wonderfully imagined animals and undies, and great design, are the essence of this one. Get yours today at the lingerie department of your nearest bookseller.

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I Had a Favourite Hat
Boni Ashburn and Robyn Ng
Abrams Books
The girl narrator of this upbeat story is very fond of her flippy floppy summer hat and so is not willing to pay heed to her mother’s “ … so clearly a beach hat!” comment. She knows it can be much more and so it can. Indeed there seems to be no end to the possibilities. With a bit of imagination and a ‘little of this … and a little of that…’ said hat becomes fit for Hallowe’en, a winter concert, a birthday hat,

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a dressing up hat,

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a Valentine’s hat, an Easter bonnet and finally even, a scarecrow’s titfa.

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Until that is the wind whisks it up and away and our young narrator must begin all over again and use her creative skills on the new summer style – a peaked visor, courtesy of her friend, Maggie Jean.
Funky, joyful, mixed media illustrations and an exuberant manner of telling put across that vital message about the importance of creativity and the imagination and how they enable us to transcend limitations others may try to impose.

If you have a particular penchant for pants then you’ll be pleased to hear that Monsters Love Underpants by Claire Freedman and Ben Cort (previously reviewed), is now out from Simon & Schuster in paperback with a free audio reading by Bake Off’s Mel Giedroye via a scannable code inside the front cover.

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On the Way to School & Follow that Car

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A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to School
Davide Cali and Benjamin Chaud
Chronicle Books
If the boy in this hilarious story came into my class with such outlandish excuses for his lateness, and in such profusion, I’d want to celebrate his imagination and award him first prize for creativity. His whole sorry saga is pretty much out of this world, as we are presented with such scenarios as the first “some giant ants stole my breakfast ” through increasingly hilariously, surreal situations such as …

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via a whole gamut of fairy tale meanderings,

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mad cap misadventures and flights of fancy, before our young hero arrives at the school gate, But even then he is forced to travel (ably or not so ably assisted by his uncle’s time machine) back home to pick up his forgotten packpack, only to be confronted when he does make it to his classroom, by his disbelieving teacher who seemingly, is having none of it.

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As the illustrator’s name might imply, this book is hot stuff – sorry about the pun. Those scenes of his are real rib-ticklers and Davide Cali’s droll delivery of the boy’s journey equally so.
A small book indeed; but one that packs a powerful punch.

Slightly less crazy but also involving a journey and food (oh! maybe forget that last bit) is:

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Follow That Car
Lucy Feather and Stephan Lomp
Nosy Crow
Hey, you … yes you!
Mouse needs your help and he needs it now!
He needs to catch Gorilla and he needs to be super-quick!
Are you ready? Then let’s go!
   FOLLOW THAT CAR!
An immediate engagement tactic that and one I doubt many young children would be able to resist.
Off speeds chunky Gorilla in his small car with Mouse on his mo-bike in hot pursuit. But what is the purpose of the chase? Has Gorilla stolen something? is the first thought, but we don’t find out (unless like this reviewer you cheat and read the ending before engaging in the chase. Not something I allowed my group of mixed infants to do, however – not knowing is really part and parcel of the fun.)
So off we go along with Mouse as he manoueveres around that sheet of glass and through the busy streets… past the building site where Gorilla completes a dare-devil stunt… down the car park ramp… over the fly-over towards the railway station. Oh no! Gorilla’s got through but Mouse is stuck at the crossing gate.

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Good job we saw that tunnel, so it’s on towards the farm taking care to avoid any tractors and oh my goodness! now comes a busy market and Gorilla’s drawing further away… and surely those cannot be mountains up ahead? But yes, and a ski resort;

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the end must be nigh…not quite yet though. First there’s a lakeside traffic jam to negotiate. Thank goodness then that Gorilla has to stop to refuel and that’s where we (and Mouse) catch up with him and …

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Off speeds Mouse but – hang on a minute: now why is Gorilla chasing after him?
Well, why should I spoil it for you– you’ll have to get hold of a copy of this fun-filled, action-packed book and find out for yourself.

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