I’ll be up front about this book – I don’t particularly like it. If I hadn’t been sent it to review, I doubt very much that we’d have it in the house. Which would be a shame, as Smallest wouldn’t have spent time sitting on the couch reading it to herself. Granted, the reading sounds something like “goddle, goddle, burble, nay, inder” instead of the words actually written on the pages, but hey, she’s only 18 months old.
I *can* sort of see why she likes it. It’s very simple – few words to a page, and lots of strong rhyme and repetition. There’s even a CD with the whole book on as a song (three verses with chorus), and suggested actions for singing along, which again, she likes rather more than I do.
The pictures are full of action and colour which goes down well with her, although oddly, she hasn’t identified the turkeys in the book as birds, possibly because of their lack of identifiable birdlike shape. She’s usually pretty hot on birds – her other favourite reading material here is the RSPB magazine, and all of that comes second to birdwatching live out of the full length windows at the end of the living room. The pictures do go well with the words (I won’t say story as this isn’t a story book as such, there’s no strong narrative) and the illustrations are a definite strength with plenty of things to pick out and discuss if you want to stray from the words on the page.
Perhaps I should be giving picture books like these two ratings. One from me and one from the target audience. I’d be giving this one 3 out of 5, while I think Smallest is going 4 – she seeks it out and offers it to ppl to read, which isn’t the treatment that all books get. I’d certainly be interested in looking at other books by these author/illustrator team on the strength of her reaction to this one.
Disclosure: I’m on the reviewer team for Top That! Publishing and I’m sent these books free to review. I’m also encouraged to send negative feedback back to the publishers so that they can improve books in later editions, which I think is a stormingly good idea, so this isn’t only about publicity for their books.
Adding this to the 100 book list now, and it comes in at 81.
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