Age 3-6

Dodd, New Zealand’s bestselling picturebook author, has long been a favourite in Britain for her rhyming tales about the sausage dog Hairy Maclary and his friends, including the dalmation “Bottomley Potts all covered in spots” and the Old English sheepdog “Muffin McLay like a bundle of hay”. She skilfully uses a dactylic, diddley-diddley metre like Dr Seuss or A A Milne, never losing the bounce of the verse and accompanying it with cheerful doodles. This is the story of the second ark that Noah built when his was full. He puts his friend Sam Jam Balu in charge, but he takes so long to load the candy-striped camels and flying flapdoodles that the flood has abated by the time they are all boarded. We conclude that we have lost the butternut bears and the polka-dot piffles because, although they weren’t drowned, they were in the wrong place. The strength of the book is Dodd’s ability to write words and rhythms that roll round the tongue and that are fun to read aloud. Young children respond to alliterative, rollicking language: it is nourishing to their verbal development, and it has to be done well. For this we can count on doodley, diddley Lynley Dodd.

THE OTHER ARK by Lynley Dodd

(Puffin £12.99)

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