Mischievous magic is afoot in the bric-a-brac shop. Something - or someone - very naughty is on the loose and nothing is quite as it should be. So begins a puzzling adventure for the stripy horse and his friends. Can they slowly, slowly catch the culprits and put everything right? Will the talking lion lock hold the key? Down in the bric-a-brac shop things are not looking quite as they should. Stripy Horse has been turned on his head, Herman the draught excluder is in a knot, Roly the saltpot penguin is full of pepper and his partner Pitch is full of salt! Worse than this however, Mortice the lion-shaped lock has lost his key and the monkeys from the monkey puzzle have escaped. Chaos is about to descend on the bric-a-brac shop and it is up to Stripy Horse and his friends to find the key and put everything back to rights.

This story is a wonderful adventure following the night-time antics of the toys. The monkeys really are mischievous, running around the shop and causing mayhem in their wake. The other toys have a wonderful adventure ahead of them, trying to work out how they can best get the monkeys back into the puzzle, and the key back into the lock. They try catching them in a net but end up falling all over one another instead, they think up magic words. But before the monkeys can be stopped the friends have to put the puzzle together for themselves and then hope that the monkeys will be lured into it by the sight of the biggest banana they have ever seen. Whether the plan works and where they find such a big banana will only be known to those who read the book, after all I don’t want to spoil the story for you!

Children will enjoy reading the story and will certainly smile at the bright, fun loving, fun filled pictures that cover the pages, bringing the toys to life. There is alot of expression in the story with words dancing across the pages, jumping up in bold fonts and running around all over the place as the monkeys spread their mischief around. It is fun and easy to read, a great adventure from a much loved character that children will want to return to time and again.

2008-08-28