When Mabel’s bubble catches her baby brother and wafts him into the air, out of the window and across town, a motley crew of characters joins the chase to try to get him back safely.

Review: Bubble Trouble follows the familiar pattern of an ever-growing train of characters leaving their activities to follow the baby as he ‘bobbles’ over the town in his bubble. What makes this so very different from The Little Gingerbread Man, Billy’s Beetle or any number of others is the exuberant, intoxicatingly playful language. The rhyming lines are buoyed up by alliteration, internal rhyme, half rhyme and a rapid, bouncy rhythm that perfectly mimics the bubble’s bobbing progress: ‘Mabel ran for cover as the bubble bobbed above her...’ The lines only slow down to hobble along with ‘crippled Mr Copple and his wife (a crabby couple)’.

 It is a masterpiece, but it takes confidence to read it aloud to a critical audience. It may be wise to have a practice run, or there’s a risk of stumbling over the long, tongue-twisting sentences. There are some delightful words that will be unfamiliar to a young audience, too – such as cavil, hovel and nefarious.

Polly Dunbar’s pictures are full of light and joyful movement so that however dire the situation may sound – ‘What a moment for a mother as her infant plunged above her! There were groans and gasps and gargles from the horror-stricken crowd’ – our confidence in a happy outcome never falters. The brightly coloured fantasy birds and patterned houses carry the magical whimsy of the words into the pictures.

2009-03-08