Fabio the World’s Greatest Flamingo Detective: The case of the missing hippo

Fabio is a flamingo detective-a rather good one as the title tells us – but sometimes he likes to relax with his giraffe associate detective, Gilbert.  He and Gilbert drop in to the Hotel Royale for their favourite tipple-pink lemonade-but don’t get as far as relaxing because Fabio is asked to judge the hotel talent show. Things become even less relaxing for Fabio (and Gilbert) when one of the contestants vanished into thin air when she is performing on stage. Her name is Gloria, she is a hippo, and we get to know all the other colourful animal characters as Fabio gets to work on solving the mystery.

The book is one of those very popular sizes like Laura’s other funny titles about Pug. The size and layout of the book would appeal to beginner readers and older readers alike and like many of the others with similar layout it’s suitable for encouraging reluctant readers. The layout isn’t text heavy-there is a good interspersing of Emily’s comical animal characters on full pages and little inserts. The colour combinations of pink, green, grey and black make for a striking visual appearance and this colour scheme is also on the background  of select page so of text.  The font also helps the eye to read as it is clearly spaced and not cramped at all, again making it a really accessible chapter book.

This is a funny tale and all the characters are drawn very well both with language and pictures. This would be a great addition to anybody’s library.