Quick, Barney, Run!

A very gloomy rainy day with Mummy and Daddy asleep or working is the setting for this charming picture book about baby Barney and big sister.

On each page we see the sister’s creativity as she imagines wonderful adventures for herself and Barney starting with flying away in a box ‘from this grumble-grey sky’. The pair then enter into a world of adventures travelling up a rock face, into a cave, through water, across bridges…

They end up meeting a rather fierce looking tiger but escape with the help of a beautifully colourful bird. There is a lovely balance in the pictures at the beginning and end, as they first leave then re-enter their ‘home world’. The picture at the end seems to suggest that the parents were perhaps only asleep temporarily at the start of the book!

The whole page pictures are in a sketchy watercolour type style which gives a dreamlike quality, suiting the story. The words are great for early readers with some lovely sounds to make and handy rhyme to make it fun to read together too.

A lovely book which would also be a good source of ideas for a rainy day too.