Twinkle, Twinkle, Squiglet Pig

Residing in the unimaginably dark depths of the ocean is an ever-smiling creature going by the name of Piglet Squid. His constantly blissful demeanor greatly annoys the other fishy creatures so one day Piglet goes off in search of something to put a smile on their faces too. Disaster soon strikes but even when he’s inside a swallower fish, inside a coffin fish, inside the belly of a whale, the ever-cheerful Piglet Squid does not lose his smile. Indeed the resourceful animal manages to make that massive mammal laugh, so much so, that after much fishy coughing and spluttering, our hero finds himself soaring upwards into the vast and mysterious night sky. Therein he comes face to face with a large pearly smiling countenance surrounded by countless other smiling shiny things. Is this sufficient to impress those woebegone fish back in the deep ocean?

Despite the murky submarine setting and the gloominess of majority of the characters, there is a real sense of fun here. The author has a playful way with words and has liberally sprinkled her tale with alliteration and Tim Hopgood’s glowing undersea scenes add visual sparkle. His doleful fishy expressions are perfectly in keeping with the gentle humour of this story, which cannot help but appeal to one’s sense of the ridiculous.