And there’s also the clever way the words and pictures work together, with the creature’s expressions telling as much of the story as the bubbles of scared speech do!

It all begins with one tiny pink fish who sets off a chain reaction of chaos beneath the waves until suddenly - SNAP! Older children could try making scenes of one colour, a shoal of different shades by adding white or black to a base colour or try making fishy collages as described at the back – experiment with layout and colour combinations by cutting fish out of coloured (or painted paper) – which colours look most striking or most subdued together etc.And the colours of the book, like the numbers and counting in One Fox, thread through the story with different coloured creatures on each page. I loved One Fox by Kate Read which I read for the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize back in 2020, and hadn’t realised she had a new one out so I was VERY excited to find this last week! What begins as a harmless bit of fun soon sees ocean creatures of all kinds and colours swept away with the fast-spreading rumour of something terrible! This is my favourite spread from the book – a riotous rainbow of beautiful colours, it’s a textured, expressive and bold sealife snapshot!

I found the first on ‘ Busy Toddler’ as an Easter activity but we’d still not tried it, so this was a good chance to give it a go – food colouring under bicarb of soda then drop coloured vinegar on to create a foamy colour mix experiment!this was also ace for hsbd eye coordination and fine motor skills as Peapod practiced using the droppers! Kate Read's stunning illustrations are as rich and bright as an aquarium of tropical fish and readers will love following the trail of colourful creatures through to the surprise ending. and I just talk it through as he tries it all out (usually resulting in a very heavily layered page of brown, but it’s all about the process! They could also try some observational drawings using documentaries or museums like the book’s creator!