"Daddy Fartypants" by Emer Stamp and Matt Hunt (Orchard Books)

Poor dads really do get a rough time in picture books. We can count on the fingers of one hand the amount of picture book dad characters that come out glowing and worthy of praise at the end of each story.

So initially we got a bit grumpy about "Daddy Fartypants" by Emer Stamp and Matt Hunt.

This time the dad is a bear, and he just cannot control his parpy trumpy bottom.

No matter what he does, no matter what he eats, Daddy Bear is a rootin' tootin' hot mess and his family really don't like being  around him, particularly his long suffering son.

Like most dads, Daddy Fartypants always finds someone else to blame his guffs on - until he finally meets his match, his son's new teacher Miss Lovelybear who really is lovely - until she lets off a real rip-snorting trouser cough - and blames Dad for it! ARGHH!

This simple action is the catalyst for Daddy Fartypants realising just how unreasonable he's been in trying to blame others for his troublesome tummy squeaks. So a change of heart is definitely needed!

I say that we were initally really grumpy about this book being about a trumping dad (rather than a mum - the mum character is strangely absent throughout the book) but then C fixed me with a steely gaze. "But it IS always you that cracks off the loudest at home, Daddy!" she said.

So I've wound my neck in. Emer ("Secret Diary of Pig") Stamp's hilarious picture book with Matt Hunt's superb illustrations might change a champion window rattler into a more apologetic soul after all.

Sum this book up in one sentence: A rip-roaring trouser-snorting pant-patootling trump-filled windy-woo gufftastic guffaw of a story with a neat little moral at its heart, POOOOOOT!

"Daddy Fartypants" by Emer Stamp and Matt Hunt is out on the 4th April 2019, published by Orchard Books (kindly supplied for review).