Cock-a-Doodle-Doo!

By Pamela Allen

Reviewed by Mia Macrossan

Pamela Allen is in her 90th year and still creating marvellous picture books.

Since her first publication in 1980, her picture books have enchanted generations of children around the world, and have garnered a glittering array of awards and commendations including six Children’s Book Council of Australia Book of the Year Awards, two New South Wales Premier’s Literary Awards, an International Board on Books for Young People Diploma for Illustration, the Margaret Mahy Medal, New Zealand’s most prestigious award for children’s literature, and most recently The Gaylene Gordon Award for a Much Loved Book from the Children’s Literature Foundation of New Zealand.

Her latest Cock-a-Doodle-Doo! is a masterpiece of careful repetition, suspense and her signature humour, as shown in some inspired names as well as hilarious illustration. Mr Grumble Bumble, Mrs Brittle Little, Mr Arden Garden are each in turn woken up by a noise in the middle of the night. What could it be? They each get up to have a look convinced it is some monster. What will they do? Somehow it turns into a midnight feast for everyone with tea and pancakes with lots of honey and lemon juice. Yum! Of course the culprit of all that noise is revealed at the end, with a triumphant cock-a-doodle doo!

Pamela tells us that this story is a drama and ‘needs your voice to bring it to life’, her way of saying that you can have enormous fun creating different voices for Bumble and Co, as well as that oft repeated cock-a-doodle doo! She has not lost her deftness in creating character, expressing emotion with minimal line and using white space to emphasise the action on the page.

Children of all ages will so enjoy participating in shared readings of this wonderfully noisy ‘drama’. How splendid to encounter Pamela Allen for the first time and discover her awesome backlist. Mr McGee, Fancy That, Alexander’s Outing, Mr Archimedes’ Bath, Who Sank the Boat? and Fat Ferdie are our family favourites. What are yours?

Puffin 2025

Pamela Allen