Indigo Wilde and the Creatures at Jellybean Crescent

Indigo Wilde lives in a huge, colourful and very strange house on an otherwise rather dull street with her parents and her little brother Quigley, who is deaf.

However, Indigo’s Very Important Explorer parents, Philomena and Bertram Wilde, are often away on an expedition somewhere, sending Indigo and Quigley strange creatures that don’t quite fit in anywhere else to look after. Thus, the house on Jellybean Crescent is also bursting with purrmaids (half cat, half fish and very confused), pink and blue croquet-playing yetis and Graham, a grey Llama-corn obsessed with eating everything from salsa dresses to Christmas lights.

Therefore, when a box arrives containing a new creature, Indigo and Quigley aren’t that surprised – but when the creature escapes, eating a whole box of chocolate in the process, things at Jellybean Crescent start to get a little out of hand. Can Indigo and Quigley find it before disaster strikes?

This absolute gem from Pippa Curnick, the illustrator of Teacup House: Meet the Twitches, The First Egg Hunt, and many more, is her debut as both author and illustrator, and it’s completely brilliant. The copious full-colour illustration throughout immerses the reader in magic, and the story, featuring a lovely brother-sister relationship, is hilarious, inventive and with a subtly inclusive message at its core.

Highly recommended for fans of Sophy Henn, Alex T Smith and Nadia Shireen.