The Little Yellow Digger 1 2 3

The Little Yellow Digger 1 2 3 Author: Peter Gilderdale Illustrator: Fifi Colston Scholastic (2025) 24 pages, paperback ISBN 978 1 77543 956 1

It is wonderful to see Betty and Alan Gilderdale’s Little Yellow Digger series being continued so ably by their son, Peter Gilderdale, and illustrator Fifi Colston. (There are now over a million Little Yellow Digger copies in print!) In the latest volume, The Little Yellow Digger 1 2 3, Peter Gilderdale uses simple verse to create a first counting book: ‘1 little yellow digger driving up the street. 2 brightly coloured diggers suddenly meet.’ Sharp-eyed readers will spot that each digger driver has brought his (or her) dog with them, so there are two dogs. Sharper-eyed readers will spot that each digger has also been tailed to the building site by a sparrow, so there are now two birds. More machines arrive (along with more dogs and more sparrows). Soon the sparkling clean diggers are becoming dusty. ‘4 busy working diggers digging up the ground.’ After a rain shower and a small flood, we see the ‘8 dirty, mucky diggers STUCK in the mud.’ The birds are smart enough to fly over the mud, but eight dogs are rolling in it! Of course, some of the diggers have to be towed out of the mud and so – as always – the Little Yellow Digger helps save the day. The final pages have nine drivers hosing down their diggers, while the tenth driver hoses down the ten delighted dogs. The ten sparrows have found their own ablution puddle. A final number check from 1 to 10 has the Little Yellow Digger driving homewards, followed by ten dogs. Fifi Colston’s colourful illustrations also carefully include the dogs and birds in all the activities described in the story. The ever-increasing bands of dogs and sparrows can be seen digging, getting wet in the rain, getting muddy and in the tenth picture having a lovely bath. Lovers of heavy machinery – a category that includes almost all children – will be delighted to find that Fifi Colston has used the rear endpaper to provide an identifying profile of the ten digging machines, from a back hoe to a mining excavator. For the record, the little yellow digger is officially a ‘mini digger.’ The Little Yellow Digger 1 2 3 is a delightful introduction to the world of counting and numbers.

Review 3811 Trevor Agnew 5 Nov 2025