Books that entice children into reading - with clear pictures that match the text, warm endearing characters, mouth-watering words, rhythm and pace and lashings of humour - are a teacher’s dream. Such a book is Two Little Penguins Called Flapjack and Waddle, a tale so simple yet absorbing that it is now on the key stage 1 statutory reading list, a must-have for every primary school.
This Antarctic story of penguin friendship, told with enchanting simplicity by Georgie Adams, and depicted with clarity of vision and wit by Jacques Duquennoy, has won th hearts and minds of emerging readers.
Book number two, Flapjack and Waddle and the Polar Bear, (Orion Children’s Books pound;4.50), has the same magic. This adventure takes our intrepid friends where penguins have never gone before - in search of the North Pole - and brings them face to face with a baby polar bear and its mother.
Duquennoy creates a delightful pictorial narrative with astonishing economy and fluency of line. Adams’s text is pared to an essence - a few, very simple, phrases resonating with some big and wonderful concepts.
