Read Penguin Pandemonium – Christmas Crackers free for 7 days. £7.99/month after - less than a paperback.
Jeanne Willis's Christmas Crackers is a funny zoo story for 6 year olds about penguins who've been told Christmas isn't for them.
It's nearly Christmas at City Zoo and the snow is so deep that Rory the rockhopper is stuck in his hutch. Then a sparkly grotto appears just outside the penguin enclosure. Santa is coming!
Big Paulie, the emperor penguin in charge, says presents are only for children. Penguins do not celebrate Christmas. Muriel is NOT having that.
So she bounces over the wall on Waldo's pogo stick to raid Santa's sack. Rory and Blue follow to fetch her back (and maybe have a quick rummage for sparkly skateboard wheels). Then Santa climbs aboard his sleigh, and five penguins hiding in the sack are carried right out of the zoo gates.
Where do they end up? An infant school, on the last day of term. With hats and coats from the cloakroom pegs, they pass as pupils. They help Santa hand out presents, hide in Class One's Wendy house, make very glittery cards with their flippers and dive under a tablecloth when the crackers start going BANG.
The fun is in the penguins getting everything slightly wrong. Rory reads a road sign and decides they've arrived somewhere called Elderly Crossing. Blue worries the dinner ladies are roasting Cyril, the zoo's turkey. And when the Christmas pudding is set on fire, Rory's ready to rush out and save everyone (who could blame him?).
Muriel is a brilliant grump. She bosses Hatty and Brenda about, calls Blue "Bloop" and gets a paper chain glued round her beak. Paulie's baby niece and nephew, Oo-Chi and Ku-Chi, lisp their way through every line and throw snowballs at his bottom.
It's a lovely one to read aloud together, with lots of voices and lots of silly jokes. Underneath there's a gentle message too, when Blue decides that giving is even more fun than getting.
If they fall for Rory and Blue, go back to Penguin Pandemonium, where the visitors have stopped coming and the penguins hear their zoo might have to close.
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