Best friends Betty and Maud love doing everything together. And they are sure that their favourite toys, Duck and Penguin do too. But Duck and Penguin do NOT! While Betty and Maud share playing in the sandpit, taking turns on the swings, painting and baking, Duck and Penguin push each other off the swings, crush each other’s sandcastles, and cover each other with paint and cake mix. Can they ever be friends? Luckily they can! Julia Woolf conveys this witty story about friendship – or not – most effectively through the venomous scowls and frowns and ferocious looks between the two soft toys in contrast to the brilliant warm smiles of Betty and Maud.
Betty and Maud are the best of friends, and so surely their stuffed toys are too! But despite what Betty and Maud might think, Duck and Penguin are definitely NOT friends. They do not want to swing together, they do not want to cook together, and they certainly DO NOT want to play baby dolls together... A side-splitting insight into the secret world of toys, from former Dreamworks animator and illustrator Julia Woolf.
Julia Woolf is an animation artist turned illustrator. She spent 20 years working in animation, including 12 years at Dreamworks in the States. However, on having her daughter, the world of illustration began to beckon and a while after returning to the UK, Julia enrolled in an MA in Children's Book Illustration at Cambridge School of Art, Anglia Ruskin University. Giraffe on a Bicycle is her debut book, and is full of personality-packed characters, dynamic illustrations, wit, charm ... and bicycle parts! Julia lives with her family in Kent, near the countryside, seaside and woods - where she is yet to see a giraffe riding a bicycle.
