Jez Alborough is the master of rhyme; his stories are always engaging and fun.  Influences include A.A. Milne, Dr Seuss and one of my favourite rhymes – Albert and the Lion by Marriott Edgar.

The coupling of a fun story and bright and colourful illustrations easily made this worthy of three stars; Matt Lucas as storyteller took it up to 4.  This story bounces along introducing us to a range of cheeky characters.  There was great contrast between characterisation and storytelling; it was often hard to believe that the story was told by one voice!

The plot, storytelling and animations were excellent.  One frustrating aspect was the way in which you were locked into the story with no way of going back to the home page.  Page numbers or accessibility to a home button (whilst reading) would have been great.  Some interactive activities would have been fabulous, perhaps covering some of the educational aspects below.

Educational value

A great story with familiar, predictable and patterned language, this is great text for the 3-5 age range.

• List all the things that go wrong in sequence of events
• Find read and spell words ending in ck
• Identify rhyming pairs or predict the next rhyming word
• Go to the library and find other Captain Duck stories
• Write your own Captain Duck story

 Ease of use

Choice of font size and style well suited to audience