My enormous thanks to Jo Hardacre for sending me a surprise copy of the children’s book Meet the Mubbles by Liz Pichon. I’m delighted better to share my review today.
Meet the Mubbles is published by Macmillan children’s books on 13th March 2025 and is available for purchare through the links here.
Meet the Mubbles
A FABULOUS, all singing, all dancing book of JOY!
Meet the Mubbles is the first in a hilarious brand-new, full colour graphic novel series perfect for young readers from Liz Pichon, creator of the global phenomenon Tom Gates series. Filled with colourful characters, boundless fun and lots of adventures this series is a guaranteed hit for kids!
Welcome to the Isle of Smile where everyone, including the Wibbles of Wobble Mountain, the singing Earworms and the one-eyed Drib Drabs, lives in perfect harmony – most of the time! But when the Clouds of Joy BUMP together to make a wonky rainbow it means one thing: someone or something is coming to VISIT. Who could it be?
Time spent with The Mubbles on the Isle of Smile makes everything better – you’ll see.
Featuring a QR code that will take you to a website full of extra content including arts and crafts and many fun songs from The Mubbles world and The Isle of Smile. Join our ever growing community – with over 88,000 subscribers already!
My Review of Meet the Mubbles
A strange ball arrives.
As usual with children’s books, I think it’s worth commenting on the physical attributes and Meet the Muggles is excellent. The hard back copy I have is a perfect size for young hands and has a solid and robust cover that feels high quality and which will withstand rough treatment in schools and libraries as well as in the home.
I do have one small niggle to get out of the way as I prefer not to have upper case letters used for emphasis in the middle of sentences in books for young children. I would rather see emboldened text, because I feel it’s a good idea to model the kind of writing we’d like emergent writers to produce. That said, other elements are perfect for teaching writing, with a clear distinction between direct speech and thought through the shapes they are contained in, for example.
That aside, I thought Meet the Mubbles was terrific as it is utterly bonkers and huge fun. The illustrations are fabulous, being a perfect style for the target age group and so engaging in their vibrancy. There’s so much to see that Meet the Mubbles can be returned to time and again without young readers ever discovering everything in the pictures. Adults too will love the book, partly through the hilarious thought bubbles and partly through the illustrations. Anyone reading this who hates sprouts will appreciate the section containing stuorps!
There’s a magical quality in the story that children will adore, from wonky rainbows through a slug of knowledge, to singing and being fabulous. In fact, being fabulous is at the heart of the book, encouraging children to be as bright and vibrant as they can as they work together like the Mubbles – or in some cases, not like the Mubbles, as events don’t always work out as expected, injecting real fun and humour.
With the QR code and a website to go alongside the book, this is a truly interactive reading experience. However, it doesn’t matter if children only have access to the book, because there are lots of moments when they can participate, from shouting aloud and singing, to answering Auntie Mubble’s questions. I loved this aspect as it enables young readers to make predictions and develop their cognitive skills.
I think Meet the Mubbles is a fantastic book to ignite a joy of reading in young children. It’s quirky, colourful and funny. It uses super imagination. Above all else it shows that it doesn’t matter what size, shape or colour you are, you can still be fabulous.
About Liz Pichon
Liz Pichon is one of the UK’s best-loved and bestselling creators of children’s books, including Tom Gates and The Mubbles. The Tom Gates series won the Roald Dahl Funny Prize, the Blue Peter Book Award for Best Story and the younger fiction category of the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize.
For further information, visit Liz’s website, find her on Facebook and follow Liz on Twitter/X @lizpichon and Instagram.
