The famishing vanishing mahoosive mammoth by Hollie Hughes

Ill. by Leigh Hodgkinson. Bloomsbury, 2016. ISBN 9781408862780
(Age: 4+) Highly recommended. Mammoths, Appetite, Verse, Friendship. When Mammoth wakes one morning he finds that he is so hungry that he is vanishing. Bug tells him not to worry as he will find food for him, and pulls a banana out of his backpack. The two go off to a restaurant where he easily demolishes a meal, but feels hungry again after. A tree is eaten on the way to the promenade, where he spies an ice cream van. He eats some doughnuts and popcorn and chips, fairy floss, rock and then a ship!
But even after this he feels like he is vanishing from too little food.
The hairy mammoth's story told in rhyming verse, will elicit gales of laughter from the readers as they follow his day filling his tummy with food. Bug tried very hard to fill his friend's tummy but calls a halt, when he tells the mammoth that he is thinking about food too much and works out ways to distract him. They play on the swings, go in a rocket, slide down the slippery dip, dig in the sand for buried treasure. Mammoth realises that he has not thought about food all day long, thanks to his friend, Bug, who has distracted him. And his friendship is all Mammoth needs.
A delightful rhyming picture book about friendship, also lists food that is found at the seaside for children to recognise. Readers will love following the pair during their day at the beach, fabulously illustrated in bold bright colours, and reading about all the things that can be done when there. But over all it is Mammoth and his tum that will intrigue the reader as he tries to allay his hunger and the efforts of his friend at helping him do just that.
Fran Knight