Please, Mr. Panda (Board Book)

Product Information

I never imagined in a million years that Mr. Panda would star in his very own series of books! I wrote Please, Mr. Pandaa year after being made redundant from a call centre. In fact, if I hadn’t been made redundant the Please, Mr. Pandaprobably wouldn’t exist. The book wasn’t even called Please, Mr. Pandato begin with. It was called Would You Like a Doughnut? Make a list of the animals in the story. Can you find out where they live in the wild? Can you plot their locations on a map?

A grumpy Mr. Panda offers a series of animals his delicious-looking doughnuts in this picture-book from British author/artist Steve Antony, only to change his mind, when creature after creature doesn't respond as politely as he would like. Finally, an enthusiastic lemur says the magic word, and our ursine hero rewards him with the entire box. Apparently Mr. Panda doesn't like doughnuts...Before you start reading the story, talk about what you can see in the cover illustration. What do children think Mr Panda is holding? Read the story aloud to your child, pausing if children would like to talk about the pictures. Join in Find out the sizes of the animals in the story. Which is tallest / smallest? Can you make a graph to compare their sizes? A sleepy-eyed panda bearing a tray of doughnuts offers them to a variety of animals. However, their eager replies elicit a negative response from Mr Panda. Why should this be? A lively lemur comes up with the right reply. A reminder about good manners is presented with more than a touch of wry humour, especially at the dénouement. Conduct a survey to find out the favourite doughnut flavours of your friends. Use this information to create a tally chart or a bar graph. Imagine that you bought this book at an online bookstore. Could you write a review of it for the shop?

There is another way at looking at this. It makes a great opportunity for discussion with children. I think this book goes deeper than manners!The pictures are kind of disturbing. Mr. Panda has no affect. He looks bored the whole time he's playing these mind games. I suspect he might be a sociopath. When children know the story well they might like to join in when you read the story, perhaps being Mr Panda while you read the parts of the naughty animals who don’t say please. It doesn’t matter if their version is slightly different from the text in the book. Tell the story

Write a prequel to this story. Where did Mr. Panda get the doughnuts from (considering that he doesn’t like them)? Look at the pictures of the doughnuts on the inside front cover. Can you make repeating patterns using different coloured circles? Use animation software to make an animated version of the story. Look at these examples for inspiration:

Keep in touch

Please Mr Panda has long been a favourite with our younger visitors and was one of our most popular stories at our ABC Stories sessions for pre-school children. Please Mr Panda was longlisted for the Kate Greenaway Medal in 2016, and won the Oxfordshire Book Awards (picture book category) and the Early Years Niagara Literary Award. It has been translated into several languages, including French, Japanese, and Portuguese, and has sold over 700,000 copies worldwide. The Mr Panda series has been optioned for TV by Magic Light Pictures. Another successful book, The Queen’s Hat, has been adapted into a musical by the London Symphony Orchestra. The lemur already knows what to say. He doesn’t have to be prompted. This is when I wish I had a child here to see what they thought of this book. But I don’t. I love that Mr. Panda is giving away the doughnuts because he does not like doughnuts. That was fun. You remember that pandas only eat bamboo. But is it fair for Mr. Panda to withdraw the doughnuts when “please” and “thank you” are not said?