A peek inside
A board book by Pip Trelawny COMING
Counting one to five as the boats come home — and every single one gets a Pilchard inspection. All home. All counted. Well done, Pilchard.
In Pilchard's Busy Boats, Polperran’s smallest harbour helper is watching the water with great importance. One by one, bright little boats come home to the quay — one red, two blue, and on through a gentle counting pattern made for tiny hands and eager eyes. With every arrival, Pilchard is ready for a very serious inspection, bringing a soft smile to this snug seaside board book.
For babies and toddlers, the pleasure is simple, sturdy and repeatable: point, count, name the colour, wait for Pilchard. The patterned text invites a lilt at read-aloud time, while the joke of a cat inspecting every boat is easy for even very young listeners to enjoy. There is no drama to manage here, just a calm harbour, familiar returns and the satisfying confidence of counting together.
As part of Pip Trelawny’s Pilchard’s Polperran board-book series, this is an earliest doorway into Little Chough Press’s shared storybook village. Older readers will meet Polperran in bigger adventures, but here its harbour world is introduced through the things youngest children know best: colours, numbers, repetition and a beloved animal presence. Pilchard's Busy Boats touches the series’ gentle coastal thread — homecoming, watchfulness and belonging — in a form made for first laps.