It’s time to count with Tiny Cat – the utterly adorable feline from Viviane Schwarz’s Kate Greenaway shortlisted There Are Cats in This Book and There Are No Cats in This Book. At first, poor Tiny Cat has not a single ball of wool. Gradually, of course, he gains one, two, three, four balls, and even more … Our wee feline friend soon finds himself struggling as the balls pile up. It seems that counting and juggling are whole different ball games!
Do you want to know a secret? Well, I can’t tell you.
So begins The Clubhouse Mystery, a lively and funny book centred around Cass and her friends Lex and Nicholas. Together they comprise the Bubble Street Gang, a secret society named after the road on which they live (which is actually called Berbel Street, but who wants to me a member of the Berbel Street Gang?).
Is it a bird?
Is it a plane?
No! It’s a book!
(You must need glasses)
That pretty much sets the tone for the third in a series of Create your own… books from the Judge Bros. and the results are ridiculously fun.
What do a nice but nervous badger and four glum llamas who write poems about socks have in common? They had the misfortune of running afoul of Scotland’s most horrible family, the McGloones, and if some rescue doesn’t arrive soon, they will be filling for some less than delicious pies. Fortunately, a local nice fellow, Uncle Shawn, has a plan; well, most of one anyway.
The second in the series by author Swapna Haddow, Dave Pigeon’s book on how not to get plucked, minced, roasted and served up with ketchup is a hilarious double-act. Full of snappy, witty dialogue and marvellous illustrations from Sheena Dempsey, every page is a delight. Young readers are invited into the story only if they can read Pigeonese words such as ‘fart’, ‘smell’, ‘cat’ and ‘cabbage’.
Sam Lyttle has a colossal gift for lying. Whether it’s to get out of scrapes, to impress the school belle or just to pass the time, he’s the emperor of fibbery. What he’s not so good at is extricating himself from his inventions, especially when the bully of Parsley Primary, Pete Feeney, has got his number. One more run-in with Pete and it’ll be curtains for Sam: Carl Curtains, to be precise, Sam’s former classmate and the wraith-like victim of Feeney’s wrath. How can Sam protect himself and his cat Pudding from Pete’s almighty fist?
Is greannán Gaeilge den scoth é Micí s’Againne le Caoimhín Mac a’ Bhaird agus Christopher Ammentorp, go háirithe do pháistí nó do dhéagóirí ar breá leo eachtraíocht, spraoi nó beagán trioblóide fiú! Tá breis is daichead scéal sa chnuasach le héagsúlacht ábhar, idir bhéaloideas, mhiotaseolaíocht agus ghnéithe éagsúla den ghnáthshaol comhaimseartha. Is fear mór eachtraíochta é Micí agus is carachtar greannmhar é atá lán le spórt.
Hood’s delightful picturebook immediately invites the reader in on a joke that runs and develops throughout the story – what on earth could be making Grandad do all these strange and hilariously aquatic things? The reader’s suspicions rise as Grandad spends a lot of time in the bathroom, slides down bannisters and cosies up in the freezer, and, when the zoo suddenly calls one day, the (quite literally) fishy events begin to make sense at last.
This is a book for giggle-inducing bedtimes, teatimes, lunchtimes, any times. It is a book to be read by big people to little people to puncture the pomposity of self-important books. It is a book that is serious about being fun and about making reading fun.
The thing about counting books is that they rarely surprise. There’s a certain inevitability that means the ending can be predictable. While (spoiler alert) this book does end in 10, there are mishaps and uncertainties along the way. Yes, counting may seem simple, but these worms are unruly and Mabbitt can’t really seem to control them. Some of the worms are missing! Others are having space adventures! One just nipped to the loo! Mabbitt shakes up the classic structure of the normally linear one-to-ten narrative. There’s even a fraction involved.
