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Paige Braddock Books

In this fourth hilarious graphic-novel adventure, Peanut, Butter and Crackers are getting excited about Christmas. But then they discover someone living in their Christmas tree!

It’s Peanut’s first Christmas and he’s very excited to open the gifts under the tree. Crackers explains that he must wait until Christmas and the dogs go off for their daily walk. But while Peanut and Crackers are having lots of fun with their friends at the dog park, someone sneaks into their house.

Meanwhile, happy to be left alone at last, laid-back cat Butter is so busy enjoying some peace and relaxation, he doesn’t even notice that he’s not alone. And when the dogs get home, it’s not long before they sniff out the stranger living in their Christmas tree and bark a CODE RED!

A goofy new puppy turns the lives of two rescue pets upside down in this hilarious graphic novel for pet lovers and fans of The Secret Life of Pets.

Butter and Crackers are rescue pets living their best (and quiet) lives. Butter, a laid-back cat, has access to all the butter he can lick and Crackers, a slightly nervous dog, is free to bark at squirrels to his heart’s content. With an owner who goes to work every day, they spend their days doing whatever they want.

But when Peanut, a brand-new puppy with big floppy ears, arrives, everything changes. He has no appreciation of the quiet life, no idea how stairs work and he’s even afraid of the dark!

Butter and Crackers have had enough – this puppy needs to go! But when Peanut escapes and gets lost, it turns out that home isn’t home without the noisy little puppy after all…

A sweet and hilarious story about life seen through the eyes of pets, perfect for newly independent readers, visual readers and pet owners.

I love this series and jumped at the chance to get hold of River Rescue for my younger primary pupils! Paige Braddock has really hit the sweet spot for younger readers new to graphic novels. These are just lovely, simple stories of a wise grown-up dog (Crackers), a typical grumpy heart-of-gold cat (Butter) and an irrepressible new puppy (Peanut). They’re very straightforward stories which don’t rely on puns or clever vocabulary to be funny; the humour is all in the characters, making them ideal for children who have maybe struggled but are making progress into independent, confident readers. When you hear “I can’t put it down!” from these readers, you know you’re on to something a bit special.

River Rescue tells the story of a camper van trip into the woods – super-exciting for little Peanut, perhaps not quite so much for home-loving Crackers. All is comfortable until Butter’s feline pride gets the better of him, mysteriously disappearing off for an adventure with Peanut, and the two end up needing calm, steady Crackers (and a helpful beaver!) to pull them out of the river. The illustrations are bright, clean and uncluttered, with larger typeface than usual in the speech bubbles. There’s a short bonus story and a “how to draw the characters” section at the back in the same vein as Dogman and Bunny vs Monkey.

Peanut, Butter and Crackers are great stories in their own right, but they could serve as an introduction to graphic novels and is real fun for Year 1 and Year 2.

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