Happy Hills: Attack of the Giant Danger Kittens by Sophy Henn published by Simon and Schuster
Have you heard the legend of Happy Hills? Let me tell you...
...in fact, don't let me tell you. Instead, grab yourself a copy of this technicolor marvel and let all the crazy critters who live there give you their version of how it came to be!
Peapod's favourite of the possible theories was without doubt the "rainbow sick! I liked the rainbow sick!" and honestly the idea of a place being created by a ridiculously happy fluffy bunny eating too much candy then sicking it up perfectly sums up the vibes of this brilliantly bonkers book.
Of course, this is just one of the origin tales the inhabitants of the super-psychedelic Happy Hills provide; others include a disco dancing land bum, a genie, a cross capitan with mind control powers, the lesser-known historical time period the ice cream age and flaming snot.
All of which are met with absolute delight from us but eye-rolls, sighs and general weariness and disbelief from inadvertent visitor to Happy Hills, Ace. Ace is a unicorn who got lost looking for Sad Valley and found himself welcomed (whether he likes it or not. Very much not.) into the world of Happy Hills instead.
Try as he might, Ace just can't seem to leave, instead finding himself at the centre of crazy camping trips (another of Peapod's favourite scenes - "BUUUURP! With the crisps!!"), an impromptu early morning musical, an unusual game of Duck, Duck, Goose (with an ending fitting for a literary masterpiece) and GIANT DANGER KITTENS!
This feels so utterly unique. It's madcap but clever, the dialogue (especially from our flower narrators, long-suffering Ace and unfailingly exuberant Mimi) is a wonderful mix of tones, characters and voices, and is such fun to read aloud and share. And there's singing!
There's also a great couple of 'How to draw' pages at the end so you csn recreate Ace and Mimi, which Peapod and I enjoyed doing...although Peapod took Ace and went DARK!
Overall, it's eye-popping, it's funny, it's warm and it's utterly bananas - we LOVED it and are so impatient for book two!
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