ReadItDaddy's Book of the Week - Week Ending 26th January 2018 - "I'm Afraid Your Teddy Is In Trouble Today" by Jancee Dunn and Scott Nash (Walker Books)

Our Book of the Week this week has such a fantastic core story idea that we're once again amazed that no one thought of this before...
Jancee Dunn and Scott Nash's fantastic "I'm Afraid Your Teddy Is In Trouble Today" unfolds like Toy Story gone bad.

I'm pretty sure it was inspired by those news stories you see of hapless youths advertising that their parents are going to be away on Facebook and Twitter, and are then inundated by partygoers who proceed to completely trash the house.

In this case, the partygoers are the favourite toys of all the neighbourhood kids - and the ringleaders is YOUR teddy.

The toys have a get-together as soon as the parents head off to work and the kids head off to school, and the whole sorry tale is related by two cops who were called in to deal with the disturbance.

Those toys knew how to party though. They cooked up a storm in the kitchen, making chocolate chip pancakes with sprinkles.

They adorned the walls with their art, using up all your favourite crayons.

They jumped on your bed until it broke!

Then when the cops showed up after complaints from the neighbours, they split!!

We both read this one cackling evilly to ourselves at the sheer delight of seeing someone else's house completely ruined by a bunch of party-going toys though we obviously felt a pang of guilt or two (more so in my case as I remember having one or two parties like this as a miscreant teen, though I think less damage was caused. I think!)

This was just such a hugely entertaining story from start to finish, with great art too - picture book perfection this early on in 2018? Well why not!

Cs fave character: She loved the monkey, but he's actually even naughtier than the Ted!

Daddy's fave character: A rather evil grinning cat, who just looked like a bad egg from the off (oh and 'artistic penguin' was a fave of both of ours too!)

"I'm Afraid Your Teddy is in Trouble Today!" by Jancee Dunn and Scott Nash is out now, published by Walker Books (kindly supplied for review).