ReadItDaddy's Second Picture Book of the Week - Week ending 16th March 2018 - "Rufus" by Simon Bartram (Templar Publishing)

It's lovely to welcome Simon Bartram back to the Book of the Week slot with his new creation, and there's not a Bob in sight....
Simon's "Bob" series were among the first books we really fell completely in love with on the blog, hoovering them up every time we found a new one at our local library.

Things went very quiet for a while for Simon, but he's back with a bang - or should we say a raspy farting noise? His new hero "Rufus" may be a bit on the nose, but he has a heart of gold - and his dearest wish is to be a big proper scary monster.

The problem is, life in his desert home is fairly lonely and there's hardly anyone else around to frighten. Humans are of course the most easily scared by Monsters, so Rufus sets his heart on finding one and giving his best performance of growling, snarling and being thoroughly frightening.

Rufus. We hope this isn't his dating profile. Though some folk might rather fancy a beast with a powerful ponk!

Rufus reads up on the best scare techniques in his favourite book, but as he searches high and low he can't see any people around, not a single one. Plenty of weird creatures, but no people!

Life in the desert can be a bit on the lonely side.

Soon, Rufus discovers why there's no one around, and finally finds the destination of all those weird monsters he's been seeing. Could this be his best opportunity to scare someone after all?

But what Rufus discovers is that there's more to life than being scary, and in fact friendship can be pretty cool too!

We spent hours with this book, gazing in awe at all the tiny little details Simon works into his paintings (the barn party scene is wondrous!)

It's a tale with a lovely ending, fabulous art and that all-important feelgood factor you always get from Simon's stories. Sublime!

C's best bit: Spotting a cameo from a certain spaceship from Simon's other stories (good spot!)

Daddy's favourite bit: A hugely engaging central character (despite his whiff) and a great little story, destined to win over a huge army of new SB fans!

(kindly supplied for review)

"Rufus" by Simon Bartram is out on 22nd March 2018, published by Templar.