Age 3

The Zeederzoo is female, small, bald and blue; the Xyderzee is male, tall, green and hairy. Both are lonely. This quaintly stylish picturebook is the romantic story of their search for a friend. The Zeeder wants to find another Zeeder; the Xyder wants another Xyder. Other creatures direct them towards each other but, being different, they don’t recognise their compatibility until a moment of twinkling eyes and “Pazoom!” that leads to a happy-ever-after with 37 Zeederxyder offspring. Doyle’s verse text has a satisfying rhythm that sustains lines of various lengths and rhyme schemes, as if demonstrating in its very structure that variety can be harmonious. Stewart draws his eccentric creatures, somewhere between moomintroll and anteater, with a blurry line as if printed through old carbon paper, and alternates between little figure drawings interspersing the text and double-page landscapes with stripy trees and a low sightline conveying airiness and strangeness. A solitary young Zeederxyder on the endpage suggests that being lonely and finding companionship could repeat itself in the next generation.

(Doubleday £10.99)

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