Moo Baa Baa Quack

This collection of seven stories set in and around Potter's Barn has all the makings of a classic. There is a duckling variant on Rosie's Walk (and an abundance of other opportunities for making intertextual links), a cookery book chapter wherein the animals' combined efforts at cake making result in a delicious Mish Mash Hash for Belle the musical pig - watch out in your imaginative play area! - and a grand finale of a farmyard concert. Colourful visual orchestration by way of splodges and waves, stripes and stipples encloses much of the action which BEEPS! SNORTS! and COCK-A-DOODLE DOOS its way free from the frames at appropriate moments as the exuberantly executed animals with pinpoint eyes swim, stroll, scramble, somersault, sneak, even sleep, and finally sing, their way across the pages. Altogether an inspired amalgam of words and pictures: it deserves a place in every setting where there are young children learning to be literate in the broadest sense.