Meerkat Mayhem

Meerkat Mayhem

Mem Fox

Judy Horacek

Puffin, 2024

32p., hbk., RRP $A19.99

 9780143777687

Meerkat loves his food, snacking whenever he finds something he fancies. Until the day he decides to go for a walk and finds himself stuck tight at the entrance to his burrow!!   No problem, though. Surely strong Elephant will be able to pull him out. No? Well, how about the combined strength of Elephant and Giraffe? 

The team that gave our young readers classics like Where is the Green Sheep?  have once again combined to bring them another superb story that will engage and enchant.  Reminiscent of the traditional tale of The Enormous Turnip, they will enjoy predicting which creature will come to help next,  as they follow the patterns of it being one from Africa and one that is smaller than its predecessor, and no matter how often they hear it, the ending will delight.  Using cardboard necklaces depicting each character, my Kindy kids adored acting out the original story as we turned it into a Readers’ Theatre, each clamouring for a role as we just enjoyed the fun of a seemingly simple story, and I predict this will have a similar appeal.  

Mem Fox is THE  master of stories for little ones IMO, and I have attended so many of her presentations and just been mesmerised at her knowledge and understanding of what it is that little children love and need in their books, and, once, again, she has excelled. She is the one who has been saying for decades that if we read our children three stories a night – a first-read, a familiar and a favourite – to our children from birth, not only will they have heard over 1000 stories by the time they get to school and have all the nuances of our language in their DNA, but that such a strategy would solve the illiteracy problem. 

Ms Now-20 is introduced to Possum Magic on her first night home from the hospital.

At the same time as Mem’s carefully chosen words flow across the pages, Judy Horacek’s illustrations carry the narrative along perfectly, so even if you’re not quite able to read the words yet, you can still tell yourself the story and engage in all those pre-reading behaviours that are the foundations of being a ‘real’ reader.  (If you want evidence, look at the photos in my review of Green Sheep. That 2 year-old now reads anything and everything she can find.)

If you or someone you know has just had a little one, then this is a must-have on their bottom shelf so they can reach for it whenever they want it.  

For the story behind the story, read this ABC article.