Ten Green Bottoms
by Barry Timms, illustrated by Mike Byrne
Interest age: 2 to 5
Published by Macmillan Children's Books, 2024
About this book
Ten green aliens land on a wall, looking exactly like bottoms, and then bounce around causing mayhem.
There is surprisingly little toilet humour, and a lot of irrepressible energy. These bottoms splash into fountains and whizz off in shopping trolleys. They investigate diggers, trains, and dinosaur bones.
Based on the well-known song 'Ten Green Bottles', the numbers count down from ten to one as a bottom is lost on each spread. But not to worry, they meet again at the rocket ship and at the end there's a page to open out to see the ten bottoms zooming back into space.
With buckets of humour and a light counting theme, this is a very enjoyable read. Many popular themes are covered, and there are lots of fun details to spot in the bright, energetic illustrations.
There are also two pages of 'sums with bums' at the end involving simple addition. The rhyme means it's fun to read (or sing!) aloud, so this would work for a group of children, as well as reading it one to one.
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