We keep reading Octopus Shocktopus aloud to each other in the office. Part quality control, part that it is just a pleasure to say.
The plot, such as it is. A giant octopus lands on a family’s house near the sea. Rather than disaster, the family finds the octopus useful. The octopus helps. The octopus helps more. Various friends and neighbours turn up. By the end the octopus leaves, to general regret.
The reason we keep reaching for it is the rhyme. Peter Bently writes the kind of picture-book verse that does not collapse at the first read-aloud. The metre scans, the rhymes are clean, and you can get from cover to cover without fudging a beat. Anyone who reads aloud to small children in the evening knows how rare that is.
Steven Lenton paints it in high-saturation pinks, teals and oranges. Most UK picture books lean softer than this, and Octopus Shocktopus earns a little of the attention it gets from looking different on the shelf.
Peter Bently also wrote Cats Ahoy!, which won the Roald Dahl Funny Prize. If you know that book, this one is in the same family.