Emily Brown and the Elephant Emergency

Name: William Joseph
Price range: $

by Cressida Cowell, illustrated by Neal Layton

Interest age: 4 to 6
Reading age: 5+

Published by Hodder Children’s Books, 2016

Adventure
Picture books

About this book

Emily, her rabbit Stanley, and their friend Matilda (who, by the way, is an elephant) are doing Very Important Things and having Great Adventures, but keep getting interrupted by the emergency telephone. Its Matilda's mum, who's worried Matilda doesn't have her wellies, or will miss her tea, or is going to get eaten by crocodiles.

Emily's as strong-willed and fun as ever, telling Matilda's worrisome mum like it is: clean socks are NOT an emergency. But when the emergency telephone doesn't ring and Matilda's mum goes M.I.A., it's up to this little gang of friends to save the day.

As in all the Emily Brown books, Cressida Cowell and illustrator Neal Layton perfectly blend imaginative play with reality, cleverly presenting and solving the parental dilemma of protectiveness versus the freedom to explore: ultimately, perhaps the best thing to do when it comes to childhood adventuring is to join in.

About the author

Cressida Cowell is the number one bestselling author-illustrator of the How to Train Your Dragon and The Wizards of Once book series. How to Train Your Dragon is also an award-winning DreamWorks film franchise. Cressida is an ambassador for the National Literacy Trust, a trustee for World Book Day and a founder patron of the Children's Media Foundation. She lives in Hammersmith with her husband, three children and a dog called Pigeon.

Cressida was our Writer in Residence in 2016–17 and the Waterstones Children's Laureate 2020–2021

About the illustrator

Neal was born and raised in Chichester, West Sussex but has since lived in Newcastle, Brighton, London, Slough and Glasgow. He now lives in Portsmouth with his family. He likes living by the seaside.

His studio is a room in his house where he can make a mess. The walls are covered with pictures, drawings, scribbles, badges, photos, posters, packaging and anything else that he finds inspiring. He uses all sorts of different media to make his illustrations: pencils, paint, pens, ink, pieces of collage, biros, photocopiers, cameras, a computer, bits of stick, old toothbrushes, dough, hair, leaves, anything that comes to hand... He likes his illustrations to appear as fresh and spontaneous as possible.