ReadItDaddy's First Book of the Week - Special Blog Tour Edition! "Harold's Hungry Eyes" by Kevin Waldron (Phaidon)

Definitely a case of love at first sight for this week's first book of the week. We couldn't keep our hungry peepers off "Harold's Hungry Eyes" by Kevin Waldron
Harold is a dog. Harold is the sort of dog that even we, as dyed in the wool cat lovers, cannot help saying "Awww!" to. I mean he's so tiny, cute, boggle-eyed and full of character.

"Harold's Hungry Eyes" is the story of - yep you've guessed it - Harold, and Harold might be a tiny little pooch but he has a giant Alsatian-sized appetite.

Harold is hungry. Harold is insatiably hungry. He can't help sneaking a lick of any grubby plates in the dishwasher, he's constantly on the prowl if anyone's daft enough to leave the fridge open and your carelessly unattended doughnut is fair game (serves you right for leaving it on the table thinking it'll be safe from Harold!)

There's only one thing Harold loves more than food. His beloved comfy chair, it's gloriously comfortable and just so good for sleeping on. Sleeping on your side, your front, or legs splayed in the air dreaming doggy dreams of swimming in a bowl of crunchy treats, or making your way through a metropolis made of cupcakes.

Dreaming tiny doggy dreams of fabulous treats. How could we not love a lolly-shaped truck!

In fact Harold's dream becomes a reality as one day he wakes up to find that his beloved chair is gone. He's just in time to see it being unceremoniously dumped into the back of a garbage truck, but a pooch with tiny little short legs can't hope to run after a truck, so Harold (and his chair) are lost in the big city.

Thus begins a grand adventure and some truly brilliant visual gags as Kevin Waldron redesigns the urban sprawl in a hilarious fashion!

I actually hooted with laughter at that sneaky little sideways lick of the dishes sitting in the dishwasher! 

Sometimes you can just tell a book is going to be fantastic the moment you clap eyes on it. Back when this one started to appear in press releases we were being sent, we knew it was our kind of book purely from the cover shot and purely because if you're ever going to produce a brilliantly funny children's picture book, you could do far worse than making your central character one of the most hilarious looking dogs on the planet. I mean these guys, how could you NOT love them!

I love this guy, he's like Harold's inverse cousin!

We're joining in the "Harold's Hungry Eyes" book tour today, and what a fitting way to join the tour than to proclaim this book as one of the funniest we've read this year!

Charlotte's favourite bit: Harold imagining his chair as a tasty giant croissant. Yep, we've all been there!

Daddy's favourite bit: It's a rollicking romp around the city for a food-obsessed doggy that won us over before we'd even opened the book. The story inside is brilliantly funny, superbly observed (I'm guessing Kevin must have dogs of his own or at least have had 'em in the past) and fantastically illustrated with some very funny photo montages over the top of the drawn illustrations. Just utterly brilliant!

(Kindly sent to us for review by Phaidon)

"Harold's Hungry Eyes"

Written and Illustrated by Kevin Waldron

Published by Phaidon Books

Publication Date: 29th April 2016