The other thing about reading these books many many times is the mind starts to get a bit 'beautiful' about it. I've started to make inferences about the owners of each pup involved in this story based on the dog and the brief snippet of front gate we get for each introduction. Worse I've started asking more questions, why are there so few people in this town? Why is Ms Plum always the hero, is she the local busybody, or town hero, maybe she's the only non-pet owner in town? And I have found that… the animal characters always seem to be blokes so I just change the name or I change the pronoun or I ask - we were talking about Donaldson's dairy - and I asked, 'Who owns Donaldson's Dairy? Is it Mr Donaldson or is it Mrs Donaldson?"

Has Hairy ever caused such mayhem? Thank goodness for Miss Plum, who once again steps in to save the day! On your second and third readings of the story you can point out the rhyming words as you come across them e.g. “Listen. “yowl” sounds like “howl”. They rhyme. The end of the words sound the same”. Hairy Maclary from Donaldson’s Dairy is full of wonderful illustrations which help to bring this family-favourite story to life. Here are my top Hairy Maclary From Donsldson’s Dairy activities you can do with your child to help support his/her speech & language development:Create a setting for a new Hairy Maclary adventure. What is going to be the plot? Is SCARFACE CLAW in your story? If you haven’t discovered the wonders of Hairy Maclary and his equally hairy mates, why not add these to you Summer Reading Adventure lists and enjoy some good ole Kiwi reading fun: This books helps children identify rhyme and create their own. It provides them with an opportunity to learn a poem, a chance to make sound effects for Scarface Claw and create a change in tempo when they all run home to bed!

Encourage your child to find the words that rhyme in the story. You can explain to them that you are looking for words that sound the same at the end, but remind them that these words might not be spelt the same. It was my son's first birthday last week and the boy got so many presents we're struggling to find space for them in our little house!Hairy Maclary from Donaldson's Dairy [1] first published in 1983, is the first and most well-known of a series of books by New Zealand author Lynley Dodd featuring Hairy Maclary. [2] His adventures are usually in the company of his other dog friends. His arch-enemy is the tomcat Scarface Claw.