Daisy plays hide-and-seek by Ellie Sandall

Egmont, 2011. ISBN 9781405254571 (pbk).
Jake decides to have a game of hide-and-seek with Daisy, the cow. On the surface, it would seem that Jake would always be a winner because, really, how can you hide if you are a cow? But Daisy is no ordinary cow. She is a strange magical colourful kind of cow and no matter how hard Jake looks, he cannot find her. He looks in high places and low places, muddy places and clean places, even sunny places and spooky places but he cannot see her. He even thinks she might have tricked him and hidden with her friends in the cow paddock! He is so sad and is about to give up when something magical happens! The ending is just as it should be for this age group.
This is another story from the author of Birdsong which I reviewed in April after Kindergarten had so much fun performing it. I'm delighted to say that it is just as engaging. Experience has shown me that children love to search for hidden objects in stories, often focusing on that rather than the story itself, so that this story which relies on them looking for Daisy is guaranteed to attract and intrigue and help them learn about the intrinsic entertainment of stories. There were shouts of pleasure as they tried to be the first to find Daisy, and Jayden introduced us to the word 'camouflage', which gave an alternative little boy some very positive kudos from his peers. We had lots of fun thinking about where else on the farm Daisy could hide, bringing the language of the country to the city, and then, of course, we had to have a game of our own.
Ellie Sandall knows just how to connect with the very young through her words and her pictures. Hopefully, there will be more titles from her soon.
Barbara Braxton