Who Will Sing My Puff-a-bye?

The arrival of a new child-minder can be worrying for a young child, and this story will be useful in many homes, nurseries and classrooms. Crossfire, a small dragon, is most put out when Mummy gets a job as a firelighter in some unheated volcanoes. He thinks of every trick in the book to persuade her that neither he nor sibling Puffing Billy will cope without her, testing her motherly skills to the limit. The child-minder, Smokescreen, is a different colour from them, she breathes out green smoke, and she speaks in a strange way. She doesn’t cook breakfast like Mummy’s nor does she know the rules for playing I Fry… in fact, she’s a disaster. Smokescreen, of course, wins them round so when Mummy announces one night, at Puff-a-bye time, that no longer will Smokescreen be looking after them, but Bonfire instead… yet more tantrums! Amazingly expressive pictures of the dragons help to tell a tale that is wonderfully humorous and reassuring for any child adjusting to a new child-minder.