Blown Away
Written and Illustrated by
Rob Biddulph
Published by HarperCollins Children's Books
Oh boy, it's doubling up time again. The first of our Book of the Week nominees for this week has been a riot, and we do love a cheeky penguin / monkey combo!
Sometimes the simplest ideas for a story can evolve, blossom and bloom into books that are absolutely brilliant. It takes a touch of magic though, that almost indefinable 'something' to turn a great idea into a truly awesome one. Such is "Blown Away" by Rob Biddulph.
Including penguins in a book is a great start. Penguins rock. Penguins seemingly have infinite capacity for comic capers and in this story Penguin plus kite equals hilarity. Like a crazy reverse-version of "The Enormous Turnip" Penguin Blue and his three pals are soon dragged off their feet by Penguin Blue's new kite. Other animals spy their plight and try to join in to stop the three hapless normally flightless birds taking off into the skies.
Polar bear, though plump and weighty, isn't up to the job. Nor is Seal or Narwhal. What happens when the friends are whisked off to sunnier climes on the powerful breeze? More to the point, how on earth will they ever get back to the icier climes when they unexpectedly land on a jungle island?
We read this, then re-read it, and again...and again and again until we'd soaked up every single gorgeous and glorious morsel of it, every tiny little detailed tweak of our funny bones that this book so expertly delivers. Rob obviously knows how to write stories to keep his three little girls endlessly amused, and it's great that it also works on my little girl (and me) too!
Fantastic work Rob, cannot wait for more!
Charlotte's best bit: Charlotte became quite obsessed by Monkey and his backstory. Though he doesn't technically appear till half way through the book, he was undoubtedly the star in her eyes (she loves his 'teeth chattering' bit when he gets stranded in the cold after stowing away!)
Daddy's Favourite bit: A simple story, turned into something quite beautifully detailed and hilariously funny. He probably gets this a lot but yep Rob, we were blown away by how great this book is!
(Kindly sent to us for review by HarperCollins Children's Books)