The dingle dangle jungle by Mark Carthew

Illus. by Dave Atze. Ford St Publishing, 2020. ISBN: 9781925804416. 32pp.
(Age: 4+) Recommended. In the dingle dangle jungle lives a wide variety of animals. Some are big and strong, some have speckles and some stripes, some are short while others are long. Some like to sleep all day and only come out at night, while others are awake through the day. Some have talons, some fangs, and some like to tear and bite and many could give a fright to those venturing into the jungle.
The rhyming stanza invites readers and listeners to predict the rhyming word, listening well to the beat of the lines, getting ready to shout out the word.
The four lines give a great deal of information about the variety of creatures to be found in the Amazon, and will intrigue younger readers enough to check out where the jungle is on a world map. And looking up the names of all the animals represented in this story will keep them well occupied once the story has been finished.
Some of the animals are named, encouraging readers to work out which animal has the attributes listed. Some of the animals will be more familiar to younger readers than others, so a great deal of fun could be had finding out about the range of animals, what they look like, where they live and what they do.
Brightly coloured illustrations full of humour, movement and life, cover each page and readers will love following the journey of the two children in the dingle dangle jungle, calling out when a less than peaceful animal appears. A very handy list of all the animals shown on each page is given at the end of the book, and some readers may like to look these up, to see which are endangered. Teacher notes are available on the website. Themes: Jungles, Animals, Humour, Rhyming story.
Fran Knight