Hugless Douglas Finds A Hug by David Melling
| Hugless Douglas Finds A Hug by David Melling | |
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| Category: For Sharing | |
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Reviewer: Zoe Morris
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| Summary: Another Hugless Douglas book...plus a special cuddly treat. This is a must for any Douglas fan. | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 12 | Date: May 2013 |
| Publisher: Hodder Children's Books | |
| ISBN: 978-1444912678 | |
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The fun in Hugless Douglas Finds A Hug jumps out at you. Literally. In the form of a Douglas puppet who arrives poking his head through the centre of the book. He pops up on every page of the story, sporting his red scarf and his slightly dopey look, and as his body seems to grow with every page that’s turned, you just know there’s something special waiting for you on the last page. Can you guess what it is? Hint: the clue’s in the title.
We’ve met Hugless Douglas before. He has gentle adventures that are perfect for toddler types, and although sometimes things go wrong – he might be a bit lonely, or be having trouble with his clothing – it’s all ok in the end. Always. In this latest adventure, the happiness is built in to the title – he’s going to do it! He’s going to find a hug! Then surely he’ll have to change his name to Hugged Douglas, not Hugless.
This one is a bit different from the earlier books featuring Douglas. For one, it’s a board book, for another the story’s a bit shorter (and simpler) and for yet another, it’s told in the present tense rather than standard narration. All together this makes me think of an easier book for even younger children than the other adventures. I don’t think it really matters what order you read them in because the stories change, just the characters remain, so this could be an excellent introduction to Douglas, a first experience of him.
Douglas has just woken up. What’s the first thing he thinks? He needs a hug. To be honest, I know several grown men a bit like that. Though the line of Here are some sheep… let’s try to hug them is less familiar. Douglas works his way through his animal friends, but they’re all too bouncy or far away, or they make him sneeze whenever he gets close. Maybe what he really needs is a nice hug from a kind, gentle human? Could you be that person?
This is a very simple book but it’s well done. The illustrations are complete and quite detailed with added humour for the adults ‘helping’ with the reading. Douglas is firmly fixed in the book so you can’t take him out to play with, but you can interact as you read, stroke his nose, pat his head and so on. It won’t take you long to read but it’s definitely a fun one to enjoy and does bring up things you can talk about afterwards, like whether it’s a good idea to hug the cat (or the goldfish). I know a 1 year old who hasn’t quite understood the answer to that yet. Maybe he needs to read this book.
Thanks go to the publishers for sending us our very own Douglas.
David Melling is the awesome man behind Douglas, but he does fun other characters too. Take a look.
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You can read more book reviews or buy Hugless Douglas Finds A Hug by David Melling at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
You can read more book reviews or buy Hugless Douglas Finds A Hug by David Melling at Amazon.com.
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