Are you Pablo or Splash?

The best antidote to being back to school in the gloomy days of January is a bright and cheerful new book.

Pablo and Splash, a graphic novel by Irish writer and illustrator, Sheena Dempsey is just the ticket.

Antarctic penguins Pablo and Splash are polar opposites and besties for life. Pablo is a home-bird and a careful planner. Splash is easily bored and hungry for adventure. Sick to her ippers of the harsh, freezing weather, Splash persuades Pablo to go on a holiday with her. But far from the luxury beach destination that Splash has in mind, the pair end up in a time-travel machine that takes them back to the age of the dinosaurs! Suddenly, their icy homeland doesn’t seem so dull.

Join the time-travelling penguins on an unexpected adventure to the long-distant past in this funny full-colour graphic novel, which is perfect for fans of Bunny vs Monkey and Bumble and Snug.

Sheena is an award-winning illustrator but Pablo and Splash is her rst work as both author and illustrator. It grew out of a webcomic she created during the pandemic that featured her and her husband as penguins! Sheena was born in Cork, but now lives in Folkestone in Kent.

Sheena says: “Pablo and Splash started as a lockdown webcomic in 2020, which I called Isolation Penguin (#Isolation Penguin). I chose penguins to represent myself and my husband (Mick) because a) penguins are cute, appealing and expressive and b) they’re far easier to draw than a human with all their tricky ngers and eyeballs and pointy elbows and all the rest.

“I enjoyed the process of making the comic so much that I decided to develop the characters into a graphic novel series for children.

Pablo and Splash by Sheena Dempsey (Bloomsbury Children’s Books) is published on January 18.