Hedgehog Howdedo by Lynley Dodd

Puffin Books, 2018. ISBN 9780143773023
(Ages: 1-4) Board book, Hedgehogs, Hibernation, Counting Book, Rhyming book. This is a previously published title (2000) from the creator of Hairy Maclary. It is winter and the garden is full of hibernating hedgehogs. 'There's one beneath the Pizza plant, two are on a ledge, I even saw three white ones in a hole behind the hedge'. Our narrator, the young girl whose garden the hedgehogs are all sleeping in, 'can't think WHAT will happen, in just a month or two, to the horde of hibernators in this hedgehog howdedo'.
While we don't have hedgehogs or many hibernating animals in Australia, young children will enjoy learning about hedgehogs and what they get up to in the winter. The rhyme is simple and sweet, and is a refreshing change from most counting books as it stops at eight and does not have a predictable text pattern. The illustrations are in Lynley Dodd's distinctive style and portray a real sense of the quiet and still nature of winter.
Nicole Nelson