Before Harvey can find out exactly what Doodleday is, Mum dashes out to the shops, leaving the young lad simply unable to resist sketching up a big, fat, hairy fly. But horror of horrors! the very same fly suddenly appears in the kitchen!
Panicked, Harvey rushes back to draw a big hungry spider... but the spider isn't interested in the fly... he is interested in Harvey's Dad!
Rushing back to his sketch pad, Harvey quickly draws a bird - birds eat spiders, don't they? Well, no - they fly into the garden and take off with your neighbour's picket fence!!
What on earth will Harvey draw to get these Doodleday disasters under control? My goodness, you won't want to know. Needless to say, disaster is imminent, until Harvey decides to do the only thing he knows how. He stands firm, takes a deep breath and yells: MUM!
Sure enough, Mum instantly arrives, grabs that sketch pad and deftly draws the perfect person to get everything back in order. Hmm... I wonder who that perfect person could be?
Let's just say I burst into raucous laughter.
A brilliant concept, perfectly penned with fabulous dialogue and narrative, gorgeously illustrated. As I turned the final pages, I silently begged for an anti-schmaltz, clever ending (which would be hard to do considering the whole story is very clever). I'm grinning from ear to ear while I say: I got what I begged for.
Picture Book Perfection.
Title: Doodleday
Author/Illustrator: Ross Collins
Publisher: Gullane Children's Books, $29.95 RRP
Publication Date: 1 May 2011
ISBN: 9781862338166
Format: Hard cover
For ages: 2 -10
Type: Picture Book