It was you Blue Kangaroo by Emma Chichester Clark

It was you Blue Kangaroo is a perfect book to share with a young child. They will quickly recognize the scrapes that Lily gets into and enjoy the repeated denial of any wrong doing as she points to her friend Blue Kangaroo. In our library we have the whole set of these terrific stories and our recent editions included a CD for listening. Look at each title page and count the flowers - we discovered this is the way to track which book to read next.

With the CD for It was you Blue Kangaroo I was delighted to discover Joanna Lumley is the story teller. She does read the whole book but this is on track two - it is the first track which is a delight as Joanna simply tells the story of Lily and Blue Kangaroo complete with little unobtrusive sound effects.

Lily begins by washing her toys – a great idea except she forgets to turn off the tap. Next is the great idea of dressing up the cat this is of course not a great idea as far as the cat is concerned. Next stop on Lily’s journey of destruction is her little brother in the sand pit. Mum then sends Lily and Blue Kangaroo to her room but here the real mischief begins. In total exasperation Blue Kangaroo is banished to a high shelf for the whole night.

Throughout the story Blue Kangaroo just looks at Lily but he doesn’t say one word. The final indignity of the high shelf galvanizes him into action. Blue Kangaroo climbs down from the shelf in the dead of night, finds a piece of paper and pen and he writes a very important letter when he then ‘posts’ under the bedroom door of Lily’s mother.

The final line of this book, while entirely predictable is also the most special.

Look for the whole series in your library soon. One day I might even add a little toy of Blue Kangaroo to my collection. Oh and by the way this is my 150th blog entry - an achievement I am quite proud of.