'The best books, reviewed with insight and charm, but without compromise.'
- author Jackie French

Wednesday, 14 July 2010

Review: Quiet as a Mouse & What's the Time Mr Wolf?


Babies Love Books!

Title: Quiet as a Mouse and What's the Time Mr Wolf?

Illustrator: Martha Lightfoot and Annie Kubler

Publisher: Child's Play, $19.95RRP each

Format: Hardcover with puppets

ISBN: 9781846431845/9780859539449

For ages: 0-4

Type: Picture book

About: Many a librarian will tell you that one of the keys to enhancing the story reading experience for wee ones is a voice filled with character and emotion... and props. Nothing at all wrong with a prop, and especially fabulous when it's actually built into the book.

Child's Play's beautiful series of finger puppet books are bursting with bright, funny and action-packed illustration, but they have that little added extra - an adorable finger puppet for mum and dad (or kids) to get snippety snapping with their fingers, adding a whole lot of 3D wonder to heighten the storyline.

Quiet as a Mouse features the adorable beady eyes of mouse, peeking through its front cover, resplendant with very tuggable whiskers. Poor Mouse keeps getting left out of all the party fun because his voice is so quiet and no one can hear a word he says. How can he join in the fun if no one even knows he's there?

Children will relate beautifully to the emotive storyline and will empathise with Mouse - and also cheer him on when he finds the chutzpah - and voice! - to finally get noticed. Babies and toddler won't be able to resist this beautiful little puppet as he takes agog listeners through a super fun storyline.

What's the Time, Mr Wolf? puts a slightly different spin on this classic tale - but don't worry, you'll still get a chance to snap up the kids with Mr Wolf's tooth filled mouth at the end! This book takes kids through the most important hours in their day, from wake-up time to dinner time... when Wolf is at his hungriest! The book provides both digital and analogue clocks to help kids learn the time.

There are seven titles in this series of the Finger Puppet Books - see the whole lot here.

These books are available online - Quiet as a Mouse and What's the Time Mr Wolf?