The Problem with Pierre

Alan and Betram are next-door neighbours. They are also best friends. They are also very, very different to one another. Bertram is extremely neat, and Alan is wildly messy. When Bertram gets a cat, called Pierre, he is dismayed to find that Pierre prefers it at Alan’s house.

Alan tries to help his friend out – giving him his old sheepskin coat, his chipped bowl and finally, his beat up old sofa. At last, Pierre and Bertram are happy, but Alan is not – he has no company and no sofa. Fortunately, Bertram comes up with a brilliant solution to the problem…

The Problem With Pierre plays with the format of the book, splitting each spread down the middle – the page on the left is Bertam’s neat-as-a-pin living room, and the right hand page is Alan’s homely chaos. When, at the end, Bertram knocks through the wall between the two houses, and puts the sofa in the middle, there is a coming together of content and format that is sure to delight readers young and old.

Suzanna Hubbard is an established illustrator and writer whose books include The Lady Who Lived in a Car (Pavilion) and Love Poems (Orion). Editorial clients include Wall Street Journal, The Times and Marie Claire. She is a visiting lecturer in illustration at University of Bournmouth.

C K Smouha is a children’s author whose previous books include Born Bad, Sock Story and Iced Out.