To borrow from culinary-world, the mouthfeel is wonderful. But it is in the subsequent books that Lynley Dodd’s poetic language really shines. For a repetitious book, Hairy Maclary is still excellent. Hairy Maclary is a book which builds on itself, which is excellent for child literacy and speech development and so on, but taxing on an adult reader.

I’ll admit I sometimes get ever-so-slightly tired of the repetition of that, which may be as much a comment on how many times I have been called upon to read it aloud. Actually, I think the weakest in this regard is the first and most famous Hairy Maclary from Donaldson’s Dairy. The most amazing thing about Lynley Dodd’s books how nice they are to read aloud, over and over and over again. Finally the reader finds out that there is ONE little thing Scarface Claw is scared of **SPOILER ALERT**: Scarface is scared of his own reflection. This book focuses specifically on his toughness, presenting a range of scary scenarios that are not the least bit daunting to Scarface Claw. Most readers will already know from previous books that Scarface Claw is ‘the toughest tom in town’, introduced thus in Hairy Maclary from Donaldson’s Dairy. While not created from the ground up for a touch screen, the app versions do offer word highlighting, which can be useful to an emergent reader perhaps. For a read-along experience, Penguin has partnered with Kiwa Media and turned some of the Hairy Maclary books into apps. If there’s an archetypal New Zealand picture book series, this is it. Teachers will be able to name all of them. Every New Zealander who has ever read a picture book will be familiar with these animals. Still, I have collected the entire series and enjoy reading them to my daughter, over and over again. Although I grew up in New Zealand I’m a little too old to have grown up with them. But if I have a favourite character, it is probably a tie between Slinky Malinki and Scarface Claw. I find it impossible to pick a favourite. Honestly, for a close-reading I could have picked any of Lynley Dodd’s Slinky Malinki series (or from the even-better-known Hairy Maclary series set in the same world).

Lynley dodd