The Nanny Goat’s Kid

This is another winner from this long established partnership, with some characteristically edgy humour. A nanny goat longs for her own kids. Here she is weeping over an armful of soft toys. Here she is sitting forlornly on a park bench as all the other parents enjoy a family outing. Here she is again, feeding the soft toys and putting them to bed. Then a trip to the adoption agency: an agency whose policies do not rule out cross-species adoption. Well, the new baby is noisy and voracious. He prefers a nice joint of beef to grass. He has a habit of dismembering his soft toys, and is yellow with stripes. He grows faster than the other kids and is frankly scary to play with. And now his cousins are one by one going missing. Is he to blame? You want mum’s love to be vindicated, yet at the same time you know how easily it might make her blind to what appears to be an obvious reality. I won’t tell you the end. Suffice it to say that Willis and Ross have an unsentimental eye for the pathos and absurdity of goat (and human) behaviour; and the comments of the nanny goat’s sisters act as a kind of chorus of parental platitudes. The author and illustrator cleverly convey the longing, anxiety and pride of parenting. And they know how to put together a story in 32 pages that has you chuckling and on the edge of your seat at the same time.