Boobela and Worm Ride the Waves by Joe Friedman

Boobela and Worm Ride the Waves by Joe Friedman
Buy Boobela and Worm Ride the Waves by Joe Friedman at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com
Category: Confident Readers
Reviewer: Ruth Ng
Summary: Brilliant artwork and some interesting ideas in this next stage on from picture books, but you should probably start at the beginning of the series if you want to know what's going on!
Buy? Maybe	Borrow? Yes
Pages: 128	Date: March 2010
Publisher: Orion Children's Books
ISBN: 978-0752888415
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Boobela is a girl who is just like any other little girl, except for the fact that she isn't little - she's a giant. Worm is her best friend (he actually is a worm) and he rides around in a box she straps to her shoulder. This outing sees them visiting some underground caves and learning to surf, amongst other adventures.

This is the sort of book that would help to fill that stage in between picture books and 'proper' stories for children. Each story within the book is fairly short, and the lovely illustrations throughout would help to guide a younger reader along. The text isn't babyish though, so it is definitely the next stage on from reading simpler illustrated stories.

If you haven't read any Boobela stories before you might want to try them before starting on this one. I didn't, and this book just launched right in leaving my head whirling a little as to who on earth Boobela was and why she was carrying a worm around with her and was seemingly without any parental supervision whatsoever. In the middle of the book there's suddenly a letter from Boobela's parents, or rather half a letter, and I was baffled as to why it was there, why they were writing to her and what on earth was going on... It turns out her parents are away looking for medicinal herbs and left Boobela alone, as you do. She has a gran, who she goes to visit, but I'm not sure why she's not living with her and is, instead, left alone with a worm. I probably shouldn't worry about it - it's just a story, Boobela is a giant, she can fend for herself, hopefully.

I'm afraid that I felt a bit disappointed by this book. The illustrations are just lovely, in colour throughout and really bringing the story to life. The ideas behind the story seem to have a lot of promise too, with lots of opportunities to be funny with this enormous giant girl and her wormy best friend. Yet it felt like the story never quite got to where it could have. Since I haven't read any of Boobela's previous adventures perhaps that had an effect on my opinions, yet somehow there wasn't the flow that I like when reading, especially when reading aloud, and it felt like wasted potential. And as I mentioned before, I ran into questions when I didn't really know what was going on in the story. I felt it could have been much longer, with a lot more detail to it, but then it wouldn't be an 'in-between' sort of book at all any more. It's a popular series with children and I think that they probably don't worry so much about specifics and just enjoy the stories as they are. I'm sure if you've followed the stories from the beginning this will be a welcome sequel in the lives of Boobela and worm.

I'd like to thank the publishers for sending a copy to The Bookbag.

Further reading suggestion: For a quirky illustrated read you could try Don't Read This Books! by Jill Lewis and Deborah Allwright or pirate lovers might enjoy Captain Wag and the Big Blue Wale by Michael Terry.

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