Author & Illustrator: Alex Wilmore

Publisher: Farshore

Awards: Lollies 2024 Book Awards –Best Laugh Out Loud Picture Book

Summary

The boy who cried…mammoth? One little explorer thinks he’s joining an expedition to see penguins. But little does he know, Antarctica has much more in store for him, and apparently only him. As the group keeps their eyes peeled for penguin sightings, they don’t believe the little explorer who spots a mammoth time and time again, disappearing at the first sign of mention without a trace as proof to convince the others. And as if seeing an extinct animal wasn’t absurd enough, his discovery only baffles the boy further as each sighting gets more and more bizarre… And just as the boy can’t believe his own eyes, soon he discovers that feeling may be mutual…

Review

This book will make you laugh out loud. Guaranteed. What’s more absurd than a mammoth in a top hat? A mammoth in a top hat wearing flippers. And so on and so forth, the absurdity continuously tickled my funny bone.

This story has great repetitive language with an add-on structure to build the humor and anticipation for each new surprise and twist. Feel the little explorer’s rising frustration, as the ice cracks beneath the weight of his exasperation—making the clever ending all the more satisfying when it arrives. A mammoth just as fearful of humans as humans are of a mammoth? A classic subtle ruse.

Language Facilitation Targets

• WHAT questions: “What is the mammoth/little explorer wearing?” using specific vocabulary (e.g.,

• Ask simple “what doing” questions or model simple sentences: The mammoth is… playing/wearing a X/ swimming. Make it a “Fill in the blank” activity where your child finishes the sentence by looking at the pictures.

• Making predictions: prompt your child to guess the ending and use the story context to do so (What do we know so far about the explorers, do they believe there’s a mammoth? Will they finally believe him?)

• Inferencing internal thoughts: What do you think the mammoth is thinking when he spots the human? What clues in the picture help us make that guess?