We're going on an elf chase by Martha Mumford
Ill. by Laura Hughes. Bloomsbury, 2018. ISBN 9781408872413
(Age: 4+) Recommended. Themes: Christmas, Elves, Hunt, Lift the flap
book, Verse. Fingers will just love lifting the flaps in this book
as the reader is asked to work with the bunnies on their wintry
quest to find the elves. Four very warmly wrapped bunnies walk
through the snow to find the elves hidden in various places on each
page. Sometimes lifting the flap reveals an elf, sometimes something
associated with Christmas: presents, a candy cane, a stocking.
Through the woods, passing penguins and polar bears, the bunnies
have their work cut out for them as they travel north. Through snow
and wintry weather, past gingerbread houses, and stables with
reindeer housed in them, they finally reach the place in the North
Pole where many elves are working, wrapping presents for Christmas
Eve. Then they must rush back home and be tucked up in bed for when
their turn comes for someone very familiar to land upon their roof.
A very cute introduction to the ideas around Christmas which we all
hold dear: stockings, elves, reindeer, gingerbread, fir trees, snow
and so on, this will have broad appeal at this time of the year, and
the rhyming lines encourage prediction of the next word, and
underline the ideas of poetry, as well as being good fun for kids
looking under the flaps.
Fran Knight