View source for Claude: Lights! Camera! Action! by Alex T Smith

{{infobox2
|title=Claude: Lights!  Camera!  Action!
|sort=Claude: Lights!  Camera!  Action!
|author=Alex T Smith
|reviewer=Ruth Ng
|genre=For Sharing
|summary=Silliness galore for lovers of beret-wearing dogs and slapstick humour.
|rating=4.5
|buy=Yes
|borrow=Yes
|pages=96
|publisher=Hodder Children's Books
|date=August 2015
|isbn=9781444926477
|website=http://alextsmith.blogspot.co.uk/
|video=
|aznuk=1444926470
|aznus=1444926470
|cover=1444926470
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Ah, Claude!  How I do enjoy reading these funny little stories about this sweet doggy!  This time Claude finds himself embroiled in shenanigans on a film set, helping with wigs and make up and a film star gorilla!  Claude is as endearing as ever, and Mr Bobblysock continues to enchant us with his hot flushes and requirements for a little lie down.

The Claude stories manage to fill that tricky spot of being nice sharing stories, but also being easy enough for emerging readers who are well past the Gruffalo but aren't yet ready for full on chapter books.  The stylised pictures, in black, white and red, somehow take you beyond the usual picture book fair into something that feels a little more grown up.  The artwork is lovely - all of the Claude books are lovely items to own.  The characters are all full of expression and emotion, with lots of funny and memorable images.  There isn't too much text on each page, and pictures throughout that portray everything that's happening in the story, so they're a good stepping stone between picture books and chapter books, as well as being enjoyable for older children (and their parents!)

This particular Claude story felt like it ran a little long for me - I'm not sure why, since it's the same length as the other stories in the series, but I took off half a star for that slight sense that things were dragging.  It still has the same ridiculous humour throughout of course, with wonderful phrasing in the writing and nonsense from Mr Bobblysock.  Mr Bobblysock gave me my laugh out loud moment when he thinks he's lost one of his contact lenses and they're all looking to see if they can find it when Mr Bobblysock suddenly remembers that actually he doesn't wear contact lenses, he just read about someone who did once and got confused!

I liked the resolution to the story, which came around nicely to where it all began, and I also particularly enjoyed the back page that has a helpful list of information on how to rescue a gorilla.  This isn't my favourite of the Claude stories, but that isn't really a bad thing since I rate these lovely books so highly!  You can't go far wrong with a beret-wearing dog I find, so curl up with Claude for a good giggle.

Further reading suggestion: If you'd like to read more about Claude, this is a good one to start with [[Claude in the City by Alex T Smith|Claude in the City]] or [[Hector and the Big Bad Knight by Alex T Smith|Hector and the Big Bad Knight]] is another fun read by the same author.

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[[Category:Emerging Readers]]