Macca and Al, Super Pals by Matt Cosgrove

Title: Macca and Al, Super Pals

Author: Matt Cosgrove

Genre: Fiction

Publisher: Scholastic Australia

Published: 1^st November 2020

Format: Hardcover

Pages: 24

Price: $17.99

Synopsis: Macca and Al are here to save the day!

When these best-pal alpacas decide to dress up as superheroes and do good deeds, things don’t go quite as planned.
But with some help from their friends, the dynamic duo learn that you don’t always need to wear a cape to be a hero.

Sales Points

• An hilarious new book in the Macca the Alpaca series.
• Bright, comical illustrations
• Simple, playful rhyming text—perfect for reading

aloud to little ones

• A funny tale about doing good and helping your

friends.

• Themes include: dress-ups, play, toys, helping,

friendship, superheroes

~*~

Macca and Al are alpaca pals, and they want to be superheroes! In this fun addition to the Macca series, Macca and Al want to help their friends – a powerful and resonant theme in children’s books these days. In this delightful story written and illustrated by Matt Cosgrove, whose books are published by the company I work with as a quiz writer, the alpaca friends are perfectly imagined and created. They’ve had many adventures over the past few years, and this is their latest.

When they first dress up as superheroes, Macca and Al think they’re just going to have fun – until it hits them that superheroes don’t dress-up for fun and play, they also save people!

But superheroes also have to work as a team sometimes with their friend – and this is the powerfully relevant message in this new story from Matt Cosgrove. Kids love bright, colourful and funny stories, and this one certainly delivers, and kids also love animals – animals are a popular theme in children’s books, often taking the place of the human child character. Kids can still relate to them, and what the animals do, such as dressing up as Macca and Al do.

Alpacas are the kind of animal that can be comical and fun, and Matt’s illustrations perfectly capture the fun and playful nature of Macca and Al, Super Pals! His use of colour pops joyfully on the page, engaging with the delightful rhymes that travel across the page in a fun and enjoyable rhythm. The poetry, as I’ve mentioned with previous books, is key to teaching children rhythm, rhyme and the flow of language, and reinforcing the way words work together.

When put together, the words and pictures tell a fun, fanciful story that will bring a smile to the face of any reader, and that will capture the imaginations of Macca fans, new and old. It is the perfect Christmas gift for fans of Macca and Al, and all their animal friends.