Panda & Penguin Find a THING
by Zehra Hicks
Interest age: 4 to 5
Reading age: 2 to 3
Published by Andersen Press, 2024
About this book
Best friends Panda and Penguin find a mysterious THING in the forest. What can it be? It doesn’t look like a hat or a chair, but it has lights and funny faces.
Panda and Penguin start to take the THING everywhere, but soon realise that when one of them is playing with it, they ignore their friend. Soon, a rift develops, and they lose the thing whilst both trying to pull it out of the other’s paws. Not good.
However, all is not lost, and when Panda and Penguin realise that they miss each other, they find each other and make friends again. Life is so much better without the THING. Isn’t it?
This simple story about the power of phones and digital devices on all of us – in this case, young children – to distract us from the joys of in-person interaction is somewhat of a cautionary tale. Little ones will likely recognise that the THING is a phone and know what appeal the lights and funny faces have – but also take on board the moral of the story, which is that our friends and loved ones take priority.
An adorable book with a modern message for the early years about learning to apologise and forgive each other, too.
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