 Award-winning and best-selling picture book creator Mo Willems continues his charming Elephant and Piggie first reader series, but great for kids of all ages. We've read to children as young as 2.5 and they were cracking up right along with us! The books feature two lovable and funny characters: an optimistic (and sometimes reckless) pig and a cautious, pessimistic elephant. Children who sat on their parents' laps to have Pigeon read to them will eagerly take the plunge with these books to start reading on their own. Each book has been vetted by an early learning specialist. These sweet and surprising stories are a much-needed breath of fresh air in the early reader arena. In There Is a Bird On My Head!, Gerald discovers that there is something worse than a bird on your head-two birds on your head! Can Piggie help her best friend? Children's Literature Review: Having done a gaggle of Pigeons and a couple of Knufflebunnies, the prolific Mo Willems is now into his third easy-read book for 2007 featuring Elephant and Piggie. These two have a lot in common with Penguin in the way Willems manages to get a tremendous amount of expression into eyebrows and turns of the mouth in his just beyond stick figure drawings. So too this book shows his signature style by using very simple sentences and dialogue to build a story around an irresistibly absurd situation. "There is a bird on your head." Piggie announces to Elephant who replies, "There is a bird on my head?" and runs off screaming. The story goes on with a series of statements turned into questions. New readers are likely to find reading this book an engaging way to show how punctuation can change the meaning; the expressions on the faces will make it easy for them to know just how to read with expression as well. |
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