Picture Book and Play – Supertato Bubbly Troubly

We were lucky enough to receive a free copy of this in exchange for an honest review. All views and opinions are our own.

Supertato Bubbly Troubly by Sue Hendra and Paul Linnet, published by Simon and Schuster

Supertato is back for another supermarket adventure and we couldn’t have been more thrilled to hear it!

Peapod is a big fan of everyone’s favourite superhero spud – his cries of “Supertato to rescuuue!” are joyous! (And, honestly, my own cries of the frankly inspired “Soap-ertato to the rescue!” have been pretty damned joyous too!) Indeed, there’s plenty of puns and silliness to keep us, his faithful “read it!” servants, happy too (I’m still chuckling at the stationery aisle now!)

In Bubbly Troubly it’s bathtime for the veggies and they’re having a splashing time playing in the bubbles.

But of course, it’s not long before Evil Pea gets involved and after a tricksy bubble bath switch up, the veggies are left floundering in the foam! Can anyone help them find a way out?

*Spoiler Alert*

Yes! Someone can. And that someone is maybe our new favourite character – Mystic Mango! Hilarious and so much fun to read aloud. Peapod loves this cool dude and repeatedly asks us “what Mystic Mango say?” (to which the only acceptable answer is “chill out, veggies!” despite him not actually saying this in the story!) I defy anyone reading this not to be as delighted by Mystic Mango as we were though.

This has everything you’d expect from a Supertato story – heaps of fun and plenty of puns, brilliantly melodramatic drama and tension as the veggies try to thwart their old adversary once more, and of course the eye-popping and exuberant illustrations!

I think perhaps the best review we can give it though is summed up on yesterday’s tweet…

Any book which you go to bed talking about and wake up craving an immediate 6am retelling of must be good! It’s safe to say this has captured Peapod’s imagination and left us all laughing.

So, of course we had to have a bubbly troubly day ourselves! And what better way to start than with good old bubble blowing?!

Turns out it’s quite hard to both blow enough bubbles to chase and capture it on camera! But we had a great time in the park blowing, chasing, popping, stamping and catching bubbles!

Another classic, but how could we not?! Bubble painting! With only minor paint-and-bubble-mix ingestion. Winning.

We mixed paint, bubble mix and water in shallow tubs (great excuse for a take away!) then blew into them with straws and pressed our paper over the bubbles we made.

I wasn’t sure how well Peapod would manage this but he gave it a, surprisingly good go and really enjoyed it…til he got a mouthful of yellow…! It’s definitely one we’ll do again though!

He also chose to draw Mystic Mango and we did some Supertato and bubble colouring as well (the Supertato colouring sheets are available from the Simon and Schuster website here)

And of course, we have to end with this week’s utter fail.

And this week it was the activity I was certain he’d love (of course it was) – wet messy, splashy bubble play in his tray!

To be fair, it started off quite well. He enjoyed mixing the soap flakes to make the bubbly foam, and was very excited to put the veggies in and play with them.

But once the veggies were all in and the bubbles were well and truly bubbly, he decided it was all a bit wet and messy and on his hands! And even the trucks and diggers couldn’t save it 😂

We’ll try it again another day! Maybe I’ll have to wait til summer….! (If your little one is not quite so sensitive, we just mixed pure soap flakes and water – I started them in hot then added a little cold so Peapod could carry on mixing).

Veggie bath aside, we had a brilliantly bubbly day!