Read Zoey and Sassafras 7 – Grumplets and Pests free for 7 days. £7.99/month after - less than a paperback.
Asia Citro's Grumplets and Pests is a funny magical science story for 6 year olds about a summer when everybody in the forest suddenly turns grumpy.
It starts in Zoey's vegetable garden. Her kale is covered in tiny green bugs and full of holes. They're aphids, Mum tells her, and her very first garden pest.
Then Pip the talking frog yells that her garden is no fun and stomps off. A merhorse in the stream kicks her. A whole forest monster dance party turns into a shoving match. What on earth is going on?
This is the seventh Zoey and Sassafras book, and it's fine on its own. A one-page prologue explains the magic barn doorbell, and old friends like Gorp the forest monster are easy to pick up.
Every time somebody turns grumpy, Sassafras the cat hears a funny chewing noise. Then Zoey finds some very odd footprints by the stream. Mum shows her how to make a plaster cast of one (sticks round the edge so it doesn't run everywhere).
Eventually she spots the culprits. Grumplets are small, cute and VERY fast. And they're pulling sparkly strands of happiness off her friends' heads and chewing them like candyfloss!
Zoey's way of tackling it is the best bit. At the farmer's market she learned how gardeners beat pests without spraying. Baby ladybirds eat aphids, and a tastier plant can lure bugs away from your crop. So what could be tastier than happiness?
Her tests don't all go to plan. Pip is the comedy here, shouting about how SO, SO HAPPY he is in the middle of a meadow to tempt the grumplets out. Then he gets grumpy halfway through and storms off again (he does come back to say sorry).
Zoey is chatty and excitable, and her Thinking Goggles go on whenever she's stuck. The real science sits inside the story, and there's a little glossary at the back. It's an American book, so it's Mom, pants and cotton candy throughout.
Who hasn't had a day where they're cross and don't really know why? Pip's grandma calls it "a bad case of the grumplets", and you might find that one sticks in your house. If you've got a child who loves bugs, gardens and a mystery to solve, this is a lovely one to share.
If they'd like to meet the very large friend who turns up in this one, go back to Unicorns and Germs. That's where a baby unicorn so big his hoof fills the whole doorway first arrives at the barn with a sore leg.
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