BfK


who want to help and share in Jake’s quest. The final reveal, once the team have finished their digging, provides a wonderfully pleasing conclusion. This is a story that celebrates the


Under 5s Pre – School/Nursery/Infant continued Where is the Dragon?


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power of friendship and cooperation. Accompanying the growing group of friends who help Jake dig the hole are various creatures, who appear and lend a hand as the hole deepens. These include multiple mice, and a rather bemused cat, which children will love to spot as the pages unfold. Jake’s determination to pursue his dream, and the hard work and fun he has to achieve his goal, are topics for children to talk about which will naturally flow from reading the story. There is so much to pore over in the bold and colourful


illustrations


which accompany the adventure. Youngsters will have fun comparing the endpapers where some objects have moved or appear in a different perspective. Two of the double page spreads


have illustrations Jake’s which


require you to physically shift how you hold the book – another great way to emphasise the hole.


of a life down under is reflected in the upturned toys and people who apparently walk their


dogs are while


standing on their hands. These elements ensure


clever ways which children will become fully


immersed in the story. This is a striking picture book which


is likely to become a firm favourite. EC The Best Worst Day Ever


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Sophy Henn, Simon & Schuster, 32pp, 978 1 4711 9422 1, £6.99 pbk


Arthur is having a terrible day. We don’t know why this is, but his family are all getting the brunt of his stomping, huffing and roaring temper tantrum, so he decides he must run away.


Taking his little suitcase, he


runs ‘very nearly to the end of the garden’. Hunger intervenes, so he decides to go home, but what is this? A giant forest has appeared between him and the back door, and this he must go through. Still feeling very cross, he starts out nervously. Strange noises turn out to be a bear, an elephant, and a lion, all of whom are terribly cross too, and while they start out stomping and huffing and roaring, they all find that dancing, playing music, and singing are lots more fun. By the time they get through the forest, they are all happy again, and Arthur finds that his family haven’t even realised he’s been gone. A lovely tale about a child who learns the positives out of life are much better than the negatives ever can be. The artwork is super, flat coloured backgrounds with figures with black eyes and mouths, to indicate the blackness of temper. Great fun and very imaginative, with a good moral. ES


steadily deepening initial daydreaming


Written and ill. Leo Timmers, trans. James Brown, Gecko Press 40pp, 978-1-776573-11-0, £11.99 hbk


Young readers will delight in being more clued-up than the hapless protagonists in this cleverly-constructed tale of a night-time dragon-hunt that doesn’t go to plan. Illustrated in the bold, bright style for which Leo Timmers is renowned, this picturebook uses light and shade to conceal and reveal in a series of imaginative encounters that are full of humour and suspense. With an ermine-cuffed gesture, a


terrified king commands three of his trustiest knights to save the realm, and we can almost hear their armour clinking as they scurry down the steps. Two are armed to the teeth, but the smallest carries nothing but a candle – the only source of light for most of this story, allowing Timmers to play with our perceptions via the ambiguity of shapes silhouetted against a star- filled sky. Will the knights locate the dragon?


They don’t know what they’re looking for, but the King has given them a general idea, and the information isn’t reassuring. The explorers encounter a series of dragon-shaped silhouettes. On each occasion Knights One and Two panic their way into weapon- induced pratfalls, but Knight Three remains unmoved - probably because he’s the only one who can actually see what’s going on.


When a ‘stabbing tail’ turns out


to be a snoozing soldier, the knights decide enough is enough and head for home – thereby missing a jet of fire streaming from the mouth of a large, airborne dragon. Will it find its way to the palace? The finest (and funniest) gap between words and pictures is explored on the final page, in appropriate fashion for a book that delights its readers by giving them the upper hand. Those royal slippers are betraying the King’s hiding place, but shush! Don’t tell the dragon! Timmers’ original text has been freely


translated by poet James Brown, whose carefully constructed couplets provide an appropriately eccentric storyline. There’s a repeated


opportunity to


join in – ‘Ha ha, ho ho, says small Knight Three…’– and rich vocabulary is explored as the King’s observations are reported by Knight One. The rhythm feels a little insecure at times, which may trip the unwary performer, but with such appealing artwork and a strong narrative arc, this is a minor drawback and multiple readings are


definitely on the cards. CFH My Daddies


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Gareth Peter, ill. Gary Parsons, Puffin, 32pp., 978 0 241 40577 2 £6.99 pbk


Gareth Peter started writing stories when his children arrived, and he


22 Books for Keeps No.248 May 2021 “Not that pet!” HHHH


Smriti Hall, ill. Rosalind Beardshaw, Walker 32pp., 978 1 40638789 6 £12.99 hdbk


Smriti Halls also writes as Prasadam- Halls, and she had experience in children’s


publishing and editing


before she started writing her own books, which have won awards and been published in 30 languages, so far. The dual-heritage South Asian family featured here is based on her own family: Mum does wear Western clothes, but Grandma wears a sari, and Grandpa sports a very fine moustache.


brings his own experience of being a stay-at-home dad in a same-sex partnership with two adopted sons to this delightful rhyming story of two daddies and their little girl, who is not named. Garry Parson’s illustrations show them playing, and then reading stories, and that’s when the exciting journeys start in their imaginations. With their little brown dog, they battle dragons (in armour) and find treasure, hunt for dinosaurs in a primordial swamp (when they’re feeling brave); they go to the Moon, and find secret islands. However, ‘Books take us on these


journeys, over forest, sand and sea, but my daddies’ favourite story is the one that brought them me’ and we see the baby pictures, then the toddler, cuddles with two grannies of different ethnicities, and the girl’s drawings of them, lovingly kept. As friends turn up at the door she says, ‘Some people have two mummies, and some, a mum and dad, but I have SUPER daddies, who chose me…I’m so glad’ and these various families all have a meal together. The daddies are not the best at everything, which gives Garry scope for more fun with his illustrations, but she doesn’t care. To her they are ‘the world’s best King and King’, and here they are shown with one dressed as a medieval king and the other as a Rajah, but the other way round from what you might expect from their ethnicity, ‘and storytime with them will always be my favourite thing’. This is a lovely


the joys of parenthood,


book, full but


of your


reviewer particularly enjoyed the final illustration of the dog with its lead in its mouth, looking hopelessly at the two exhausted daddies who have gone to sleep on the sofa… DB


The premise of this book is very


similar to that in Rod Campbell’s board book Dear Zoo, but the picture book format allows for more expansion on the unsuitability of the various pets that are delivered to Mabel’s family’s house by Pete’s Pet Shop, not the zoo in this instance. It’s definitely not to be taken seriously: we start with an elephant, and Mum wants something smaller, so we move on to ants, (though not in a vivarium, which would have been more sensible!) marching about and into Dad’s underpants. Mum then wants something they can see. The ever-patient Pete from the pet shop looks very anxious, as well he might, after


leaving them


a skunk, which is, indeed, visible by day and by night. All is well until the baby startles the skunk, with anticipated smelly consequences, so now they need something that’s not afraid of the baby. A snake follows, and then quite a few other creatures, including a wolf and a hyena, which all, understandably, present


their


own problems. Mabel makes a list of requirements: ‘something furry and sweet, without lot of legs or gigantic great


feet’, ‘not smelly or tiny or


scary or spiny, not noisy… something everyone likes’. The final choice is rather unexpected- not a cat or a dog, but a rat! The rat is quite cuddly, but has pooed on the floor and seems to have fleas, so maybe that one won’t last very long either… it would be a question to ask a young audience! Rosalind Beardshaw’s illustrations


are delightful. She is excellent in portraying children of various ethnicities and has illustrated Anna McQuinn’s books about Lulu. Mabel and her little


brother are full of


character, and all the animals look friendly. The image of the family in their beds on three floors of the house, as neighbours shout at them about the noisy owl, shows how the grandparents are very much part of the family, and they all have encounters with the creatures that pass through the house in their quest for something suitable. This will be fun to read aloud, especially with a group of children who might enjoy sharing the pitfalls of each potential pet. DB


Mini Rabbit Come Home HHHH


Written and ill. John Bond, HarperCollins 32pp, 978-0-00-826493-2, £12.99 hbk


This is the


popular series about the irrepressible Mini Rabbit, and this


third book in Bond’s time,


planning a garden camp-out.


he’s It’s


going to be the BEST day EVER! Or is it? The camp is lacking a few necessary items, so Mother Rabbit sends Mini on a solo mission to fetch them. The tasks take him to a shop, a farmyard and a woodland clearing, but as usual, Mini’s exuberance overwhelms his common sense. By the time he makes it back to camp, Mini has eaten the marshmallows and lost the rope. He’s found a log but it smothers the fire, and the weather’s


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