They Came From Planet Zabalooloo by Sean Taylor and Kate Hindley (Walker Books)

The madcap team of Sean Taylor and Kate Hindley return with a whole new crop of weird heroes to entertain us, all the way from Zabalooloo...
It's not often Charlotte and I disagree about books. Sometimes I'll immediately spot the potential in a book she'll have already dismissed with one glance at the front cover. Sometimes she'll 'get' a book with her amazing child imagination that has just sailed way over dear old dad's head. Sometimes though even after several readings I just can't see what she sees in something and that's pretty much that.

So it was with "They Came From Planet Zabalooloo" by Sean Taylor and Kate Hindley. Fresh from writing brilliant and hilarious books like "Don't Call me Choochie Pooh" this dream team are back from outer space and their latest characters are a strange bunch of aliens.

Meet Boron, Bazoo and Zob who are on an epic quest to visit earth to bring something back to Planet Zabalooloo. A big thing, a huge colossal thing.

Only these three aliens are a bit over-enthusiastic and energetic for their own good. When they meet one of Earth's largest creatures (a rather sleepy Elephant) they're defeated by a titanic guff and are forced to retreat before they can kidnap Ellie and whisk her back to their home planet.

Medium sized things are sized up next, a lion perhaps?

This doesn't look like it's going to end well...!

Well, have you ever tried abducting a lion when you're a fairly tiny and pretty crazy alien? I guess not.

Smaller objects are then sought. Perhaps at last those crazy Zabaloolooians have struck gold.

Ducklings! Aren't they just TOO TOO cute!

Of course if there's one thing to have aliens (And Charlotte) cooing in admiration it's a fluffy duckling. But will those aliens take this fluffy and cute fellah back to their homeworld? Or have they perhaps learned a valuable lesson about taking stuff that doesn't belong to you?

Charlotte lapped this book up and demanded it over a couple of bedtimes (and read it several times herself of course). I don't know why but I just could not get on with it, perhaps it was the weird speech patterns of the Zabalooloo crew, or the fact that I kept saying "Zabaloo" instead of "Zabalooloo" - or just that I couldn't make my mind up what the message was that the book was trying to convey, but as every parent will know - kids are geniuses, and sometimes they can see things in books that we just plain can't!

Charlotte's best bit: Meeting the duckling for the first time. Oh Wow Wee indeed!

Daddy's favourite bit: I did love the illustrations and I'm all for books with aliens in but I just couldn't get on with this one for some reason. Sorry folks!

(kindly supplied for review)

"They Came From Planet Zabalooloo" by Sean Taylor and Kate Hindley is out now, published by Walker Books.