The Curious Case of the Missing Mammoth; Ellie Hattie, illustrated by Karl James Mountford

The Curious Case of the Missing Mammoth is a rip-roaring adventure filled with incredible facts and beautiful life-the-flaps. This is a beautifully presented picture book which mixes a lively narrative full of adventure with an abundance of intriguing facts.

When the visitors have all gone home from The Curious Museum and are fast asleep in their beds it its time for the animals to enjoy themselves and when the clock strikes midnight the museum comes to life…get ready for the magic hour.

Oscar is rudely awoken by the dongs of the town clock as it strikes midnight. But that’s not the only things he hears…something is making some rather loud stomping noises. When he peers through his bedroom curtains he is face to face with a wooly mammoth. A wooly mammoth named Timothy who is on the hunt for his baby brother, Teddy. With a baby mammoth on the loose and with only an hour to find Teddy, Timothy and Oscar are in race against to return Timothy to his museum home.

As Teddy leads Timothy and Oscar on a riotous chase through the museum the reader is taken on an incredible journey through an underwater world, the library, the flight floor, the dinosaur floor, and endangered and extinct animals. Along the way readers are treated to all manner of fabulous facts and information. Pages are filled with fascinating facts, of which many are hidden under gorgeous lift-the-flaps. Readers are treated to information on coral under the sea to the smallest book ever written to the fastest lift in the world.

The double-page spreads are glorious to look at. They are filled with colour, no space is left unfilled and there are so many different things to see and admire. The hours that have gone into creating this brilliant book will be reciprocated by any curious reader as they spend hours reading and revisiting it.

A beautiful and engaging picture book.

Recommended for 5+.​​