The Diddle that Dummed

This tale of musical mayhem is a welcome addition to Kes Gray’s ever-expanding range of laugh-out-loud funny picture books. Flinty Bo Diddle is writing a tune for his fiddle and all is proceeding well until one of his diddles goes ‘dum’. Despite Flinty’s best efforts at re-arranging his tune the diddle that dummed keeps causing havoc, Flinty becomes increasingly distraught and the silliness levels rise to culminate in an ending of toilet humour hilarity involving piddles and a plop rather than diddles and a dum!

The illustrations by Fred Blunt complement the word play and humour of the text perfectly. The white backgrounds and musical notation with rows of appealing blue diddle notes are eye-catching and the expressive illustrations of Flinty gradually losing the tune-writing plot are increasingly humorous. This new picture book by Kes Gray has great verbal and visual appeal, it is perfect for performing aloud and provides an early introduction to musical notation as well as to the power of standing out from the crowd. An entertaining read for children who love silly, anarchic humour.