Lemmy was a Diver

Six-year-old Lemmy’s flights of fancy take him deep-sea diving for treasure, piloting a single propeller plane around the world in a record-breaking race and blasting off into the cosmos in a rocket. In all these adventures Lemmy has to fend off his rival, ‘bully-boy’ McCoy, a corpulent fellow twice his size.

I can imagine this picture book’s appeal to the more belligerent listeners and readers but as a pacifist I’m none too keen on the notion of punching one’s adversaries (even bullies) on the nose. Neither the words nor the illustrations live up to McNaughton’s usual very high standard. The rhythm is difficult to sustain when reading it aloud and the illustrations fail to lift the storyline out of the ordinary.