I was given this book by the author and illustrator, AC Michael  in return for an honest review.

The Blurb:

Why did the squirrel constantly twitch?
And why did the cat always scratch its itch?

The dog thought it must have been a flea,
And the ferret knew it was impossible to see.

Then the doctor came to have a look,
Determined to squash the flea with his book.

But could the doctor find the little flea?
Read this book, and you shall soon see…

My Review:

This is one of five picture books by this author that I’ve been asked to review.

I’d like first to talk about the illustrations. they look as though they are mixed media; pen and ink  and pastels. Nicely drawn and quirky. I love the illustration of the flea becoming visible when wet and then fading again.

Told mostly in couplets and four line verses, with some clever near and slant rhymes and end rhymes, The Squirrel’s Flea is  funny in the way the flea is passed from animal to animal… and finally to the doctor who has refused to help throughout.

As a picture story the repetition of some of the lines and with the animals seeing first the vet and then the doctor time and time again, is a good. 

If I had any problem with the story it would be the length of the whole thing; I felt it was too drawn out. I would have liked the dog to have been the last animal; the ferret felt  as though it was just one animal too many

A nice touch was the small paragraph of the flea at the end:

A paragraph all about…
The Invisible Flea!
Only when wet,
does the flea become visible!
But when it is dry,
it remains completely invisible

A tightening of some of the lines(a few have one or two syllables too many) and a further edit would make this picture book into a lovely story for a parent  to read it to a younger child.

About the Author:

AC Michael was born in Yorkshire, England and enjoyed writing stories and drawing cartoons from a young age.
When not writing, his interests range from hill-walking to gardening, and from watercolour painting to quantum physics.
His favourite authors are Roald Dahl, Leslie Charteris and Ian Fleming.

Visit www.acmichaelbooks.co.uk
For more Curious Characters stories!

Buying Links:

Amazon.co.uk: http://amzn.to/2j4P1qR