So don't blame us that we had to make "Bunny vs Monkey Book 3" our book of the week this week. It's entirely Jamie Smart's fault.
Crafting such mania, weaving together such chaos can't be easy. We have a mental picture in our heads of young Jamie sweating cob nuts over each story, rolling mysterious dice and uttering strange incantations in lost languages until the words and pictures start to form in his mind.
Or it could just be that he is capable of such random surreality as some sort of divine gift.
Either way, "Bunny vs Monkey" once again brings together Bunny, Monkey, Pig, Metal Steve, Skunky, Action Beaver (our fave) and the rest of the gang for more crazy antics, often involving rude bodily functions, maniacal inventions and (increasingly), poor confused humans who are trying to work out why the woods are inhabited by such a weird bunch.
I love the bits where the hapless park ranger is seriously convinced that something is going on, and is vainly trying to chart the weirdness to convince the rest of the world that the animals are intelligent and are definitely up to something. (Only one of those statements is true of course!)
Charlotte, the miscreant, favours Team Monkey. I think it's the fact that Monkey just so blatantly doesn't care that his actions are often pure knee-jerk, badly thought out, and quite often end in disaster (with Monkey usually on the receiving end). She cannot resist his cheeky charm, and that adorable cute face he does - just before he's about to unleash pure terror on the rest of the woods.
As Book 3 comes to a close, you start to wonder just how long Jamie can keep this level of mania up until he runs out of ideas. So far, it's looking like it'll be around book 7 billion, so we've got a way to go yet (thankfully!)
Charlotte's favourite bit: Monkey's devil-may-care attitude (and fondness for guffs).
Daddy's favourite bit: A chaotic cornucopia of classic comic calamities collected with consummate coolness! Corking!
(Kindly sent to us for review by David Fickling Books)
"Bunny vs Monkey Book 3"
Written and Illustrated by Jamie Smart
Published by David Fickling Books
Publication Date: 7th July 2016