A stack of alpacas by Matt Cosgrove

Scholastic, 2019. ISBN: 9781742998848.
(Age: 3+) Recommended. Themes: Alpacas, Rules, Family, Verse. Younger readers will pick up this book with familiarity after reading the others in the series about alpacas, knowing that they are in for a treat, a fun verse story of mayhem, illustrated in a way that will make them laugh out loud, and knowing that the end will bring a twist that will keep them laughing a lot longer.
Cosgrove's distinctive alpaca with his bright eyes and upwardly pointing ears and soft eyes has a small problem. He loves to collect caps, and have lots of naps, but when his nephew, Drew along with two nieces, Reece and Roo come to stay, mayhem begins.
They want to play stack on Uncle Mack which results in his back being awfully sore; they flick their peas and eat lots of lollies, make lots of noise and are always crashing and splashing, they fight and whinge and despite Uncle Mack telling them about his rules, they show no sign of obeying them. There is only one way to go. Uncle Mack loses his stack.
After that the three small alpacas do all they can to repair their relationship with their uncle and do lots of things to apologise. And then comes the sting in the tail.
Cosgrove's wonderful rhymes combined with his detailed illustrations which never seem to sit still on the pages, will give willing listeners and readers a chance to laugh out loud, and at the same time learn about family relationships and how to keep your older relations happy. Macca's Christmas crackers, Macca the alpaca, and Alpacas with maracas are his recent books and a cute photo of Matt reading his story to two lovely alpacas can be seen at https://www.facebook.com/MattCosgroveBooks/
Fran Knight