Pablo and Splash
Publisher: Bloomsbury Children’s Books
Pablo and Splash are two penguins who live in Antarctica. Pablo loves the ice, the krill and the cold. But Splash yearns for a holiday. When they tumble into a scientist’s lab and accidentally zoom off in her TimeBender machine, they end up in the Cretaceous period! No water slides or mocktails for Splash – just avoiding hungry dinosaurs. And then some dinos damage the TimeBender. How will Pable and Splash get back to their lovely icy home?
This is the first graphic novel written and illustrated by Sheena Dempsey and it’s a lot of fun. Pablo and Splash are very different, and their dialogue – which is the entire text – provides a lot of comedy. Splash is impulsive and usually reliant on Pablo to think of a plan, and their physical reactions to each other are very humorous. Sheena Dempsey’s ability to draw a variety of expressions on a penguin’s face is seriously impressive.
This is a pacey read with short chapters and upper and lower case font, which makes the speech bubbles easier to de-code. There is some wordplay, meaning that it isn’t for complete beginner readers, but the colour pictures and quirky characters make it irresistible.
