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The Toucan Brothers by Tor Freeman (view source)
Revision as of 13:58, 6 June 2013
, 13:58, 6 June 2013no edit summary
This book has many elements of a good comic book as well. The illustrations do a very good job of telling the story on their own and a child could get a fairly good grasp of the story by looking at the pictures alone. This means that a new reader will not be lost if they find a few of the more challenging words a bit too difficult. If you have a bit of time to pass you could spend ages taking turns choosing something for the children to find in the pictures. It is obvious that the illustrator really took her time with these pictures, adding all sorts of extra details and these do add to the enjoyment of the book. I am not all surprised to learn that she has been awarded a very prestigious prize for illustration (The Sendak Fellowship).
This is a fun story about two puffin toucan brothers (who bear enough resemblance to penguins to make this a sure hit with any penguin -mad child). The brothers are plumbers and do a good a job. But when a naughty dog comes to town and undercuts their prices it looks like the plumbers may be out of a job - that is until everything the dog fixed begins to break again at near enough the same time with very comic results. This story is told in rhyming verse, which has a very natural and uncontrived flow to it. I do especially value a good rhyming text as the ability to recognise rhyme is one of the first steps to emergent literacy. Reading rhyming stories is one of the very best things a parent can do to help their child become a reader.
My oldest never requests picture books anymore, but despite having read this himself when it first arrived, he obviously wanted to hear me read it as well. I was gathering up a pile of books to read, and every time I added more books to the stack he pulled this one out from underneath and added it to the top. Once we started reading it was non stop laughter. The book has three toilet disasters - an event sure to delight younger readers. My sons also loved poor mole who had called the plumbers only to discover his tap wasn't broken at all. He had just forgotten to turn it on. But the ending was the very best of all with one disaster after another followed by a massive flood.