“Never work with animals or children!” goes the old actor’s dictum. What a shame it would be if we never did, because these three picture books all show how wonderful the relationships between children and animals can be. 

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Sleepy Pendoodle is a delightful celebration of a child’s first days with a new pet.  It is as bright and impatient as any young child, flitting from one experience to another and wanting everything NOW!  When Pendoodle the pup will not open his eyes, his little owner gets some magic words to use from Uncle Hughie.  But she can never quite remember them and her all mixed up efforts have no effect on the sleepy pup.  She tries and tries, day after day, until finally she gets it right and the two new friends can gaze in wonder at each other. 

Australian illustrator Julie Vivas puts so much life into the figures that tumble across the pages, matching Irish author Malachy Doyle’s bouncing, poetical text perfectly.  This is a read-aloud and read-together must! 

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The Birdwatcher is a gentler story about the complete trust that a child can have in a caring adult.  Jess describes her Grandad’s love of bird watching through all the little in-jokes that two really close people have.  Simon James’ text is straight forward, but his illustrations show a subtly different story taking place, picking up on those personal jokes. 

When Grandad takes her out bird watching one morning, it is not exactly as Jess imagined.  Soon, however, she is able to match him in both the watching and the gentle joking, proving that he is a very good teacher!  The little twist at the end would be a funny discovery for any early reader. 

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Carlo Likes Colours is a much more traditional style of teaching book for beginning readers.  It is a “Point and Say” style of early reading text as Carlo the giraffe moves around his home and town seeing the different colours that everyday objects can be.  One page is mainly red things, the next blue and so on. 

Then, as the young reader recognizes the pictures of these everyday items, the names of many are shown as a baggage label tied on to them to help with early reading. 

This is a straight forward “learn to read” book, made much more fun by Spanyol’s bright, cheerful drawings.  The colours are bold, the pictures simple and the result is a treat for a pre-reader.

 Review by David Beagley

© 2003 David Beagley