The day is done. It’s time for little ones to go to bed. But first, one poorly demon needs his Calpol, there’s a tiny cyborg to plug in and charge, and the slimy green star of Huw Aaron’s latest story, Sleep Tight, Disgusting Blob (Puffin), must be dragged away from the Lego.
Welsh author, illustrator and graphic novelist Aaron has flipped the traditional bedtime story on its head to create a delightfully different rhyming tale about child monsters and villains settling down for the night. But, rather than causing a fright, it brims with just the right amount of loving cosiness to help mini humans drift off. Mummy blob narrates from inside an almost normal house but, beyond the potted plants on the window ledge, dragons and aliens swoop outside, and when Mum plops her precious slimeball into bed, the pillow is “lovely and damp”. Sharp, fun and brimming with attention to detail, it’s also guaranteed to be the year’s only book with the line: “The Sentient Meteor is snug in her cot.”
Equally joyous is Forest Xiao’s debut Seven Babies (Walker), featuring a box of toddling, babbling, bawling babies, who arrive one day at a couple’s house in a giant cardboard box and immediately fill the home with their gorgeous, chaotic energy. The babies’ expressive round faces recall Helen Oxenbury’s drawings (soon to be celebrated at London’s Burgh House in a show called Helen Oxenbury: Illustrating the Land of Childhood), but Xiao’s art has a zingier colour palette and a wildness of its own. It’s one of the cutest, and perhaps best, picture book portrayals of new parenthood that I’ve ever read – the exhausting babies barrel across each page, pulling books from shelves, chewing the rug and escaping the bath – and its opening dedication says it all: “To Ora, who is seven-babies-in-one.”
Another great debut comes from illustrator Greg Stobbs, who has now written his first book, Cloud Boy (Oxford University Press), about a child called Bobby who frequently finds himself distracted and drawn into his imagination. With fresh, lively artwork, Stobbs depicts Bobby’s mind being pulled away into the sky by a swirling neon pink vine featuring creatures and aircraft, stars and cake. His friends and family decide they must tie him down to earth with string but, kept from his true self, Bobby feels sad and empty, and soon those who love him realise they must meet him on his own terms.
Gozzle (Macmillan) reunites author Julia Donaldson and illustrator Sara Ogilvie, creators of the bestselling The Detective Dog, in an irresistible odd-couple tale about a gosling (called Gozzle) and the big brown bear who she mistakenly takes to be her father after hatching on his doorstep. Ogilvie’s scratchy, textured illustrations bring to life Donaldson’s playful prose, ensuring the book’s characters truly bounce off each other. At once a warm and witty exploration of family and home, Gozzle also effortlessly explores themes such as hibernation, migration and the seasons.
To round off a bumper crop of funny books this month, rather than posing the age-old question: “How much is that doggy in the window?”, John Bond’s waggish, primary-coloured book asks How Long Is That Dog? (HarperCollins). Purple-haired young Evie must work out the answer in order to get the dog she’s been pining for in her local pet shop. An amusing challenge, it allows Bond to explore the concept of size with young readers, while showcasing his mad canine illustrations, from a school bus-size dog to a salty, bent-out-of-shape-pretzel pooch. A real treat.