Age 3+

Parents who like film noir will find in Ed Vere’s picturebook a great opportunity to do James Cagney impersonations during the bedtime story. The book is an original take on the formula that shows a part of an animal and invites toddlers to identify the whole creature. This notion is contained in a narrative of an escaped mouse, tough-talking cheese thief Fingers McGraw, who is pursued by ace lawman, elephant Jumbo Wayne Jr. Vere uses dialogue from the cinema (“You know how to whistle . . .”) and drawings superimposed on atmospheric photographic backgrounds that suggest the mean streets of Chicago. He offers a lot of knowing entertainment to adults while drawing young readers in to a chase and a guessing game, with tracks to follow across the page, a fold-out surprise, a dark denouement and a hopeful coda. The endpapers are for the adults to laugh at after lights out, with their spoof newspaper pieces about the theft of The Maltese Stilton, and parodic film credits. Verbally playful and visually stimulating, the book creates a complete world of its own. Here’s looking.

THE GETAWAY by Ed Vere

(Puffin £10.99)

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