Early readers


8
Jul 09

REVIEW: The Cat in the Hat by Dr Seuss

the-cat-in-the-hat-by-dr-seuss“The Cat in the Hat” and “The Cat in the Hat Comes Back” were two of the books I’d lined up in our home library. Recently, my toddler asked me to read “The Cat in the Hat”.

“The Cat in the Hat” starts off with a boy and his sister, Sally stuck at home alone on a rainy day with nothing to do. As they sit staring out of the window, a Cat with a hat walks in and promises the kids “lots of good fun that is funny” and “good games we could play”.

The kids’ pet fish senses trouble and tries to advise the children to chase the Cat away but the cunning Cat stays on and starts his tricks:

  • balancing on a ball;
  • balancing an umbrella, the pet fish, a book, a cup and saucer, a cake and MORE and MORE things!

Of course, they soon come tumbling down creating a big mess…But the Cat introduces Thing 1 and Thing 2 who “help” to clean up…

Review: My boy *loved* watching the Cat balance the various items and got excited at the HUGE mess and of course, the two Things who cause even more havoc around the house.

As he learned the words of various things found around the house, he also learned about keeping his playthings back where they belong and tidying things up.

The best is that Dr. Seuss has managed to turn this simple children’s adventure into such an educational and fun story to read!

THE CAT IN THE HAT COMES BACK

the-cat-in-the-hat-comes-back-by-dr-seussThe boy and his sister, Sally are asked by their Mother to help shovel snow off the driveway when the Cat shows up and tells them to continue with what they are doing – HE’s going into the house to “find something to do” O_O

The Cat ends up eating a cake in the bath tub with the water running! The boy chases the Cat out of the tub, only to find a PINK ring all around it. What’s worse, the Cat takes the Mother’s dress to clean the ring…

The rest of the story deals with how the Cat and and his troop of 26 “Little Cats” (named letters A – Z) tried to get rid of the PINK stain which spreads itself all over the house and the compound.

Review: Another exciting adventure with the Cat minus the Fish. Here, the book goes through letters of the alphabet and being responsible on their own.

My boy seemed to identify with the boy in the book because he was horrified too when the Cat used the Mother’s dress to clean the spot and also when the pink spot jumped from one place to another and grew so humongous that even the snow in the yard was PINK!

I think he felt as relieved as the kids were when the Cat restored the snow to its original, clean white :-)

Rating: ★★★★☆

Fantastic children’s books! Grab a copy from my Amazon Bookstore


12
May 09

REVIEW: The Little Engine That Could by Watty Piper

little_engine_that_could I remember this story from a  collection of books I read as a kid called “A Child’s World”.

Browsing through the bookshelves, I was happy to find “The Little Engine That Could” at the library for my train-crazy toddler.

What’s more, it’s the original edition by Watty Piper :-)

The Little Engine That Could” is an American classic, which is like the story of the Good Samaritan for toys (or trains or kids).

A little red train is bringing trucks (or cars here) full of “good things for boys and girls” i.e. toys like

  • “giraffes with long necks, Teddy bears with almost no necks at all, and even a baby elephant.”;
  • “dolls with blue eyes and yellow curls, dolls with brown eyes and brown bobbed heads, and the funniest little toy clown you ever saw”;
  • “toy engines, airplanes, tops, jack-knives, picture puzzles, books, and every kind of thing boys or girls could want”

There are also nice things to eat like:

“big golden oranges, red-cheeked apples, bottles of creamy milk for their breakfasts, fresh spinach for their dinners, peppermint drops and lollypops for after-meal treats”

The train is going over to the other side of the mountain when she stops suddenly…

The train breaks down! And all the toys and animals are sad but the clown cheers everyone up when he sees a train coming by.

A Passenger train, a Freight train, a tired old train all come by but NONE of them would help to pull the little red engine.

Finally, a cheery little blue train (kinda like Thomas!!!) comes by and though she doubts if she can, she helps to pull the little red train and the toys and animals over the mountain, strting and ending with the famous lines:

“I think I can, I think I can, I think I can…” and

“I thought I could, I thought I could, I thought I could…”

Now, Watty Piper must have been a writer with a strong, powerful voice because I got REALLY out of breath repeating the long sentences describing the toys and food on the train. In the end, I skipped the repetitions and just went for brief sentences :-)

But I had a lot of fun coming up with different voices for the different trains.

The funniest part had to be the pleading clown and dolls because without my realizing it, I borrowed Scarlett O’Hara’s Southern Belle slang when I read:

“Please, Kind Engine,” cried all the dolls and toys together. “Won’t you please pull our train over the mountain? Our engine has broken down, and the boys and girls on the other side won’t have any toys to play with or good food to eat unless you help us.”

I sound so much like a damsel in distress! I thought Lucas would go around in this whiny sort of plea but instead, his favourite line is “Our train has broken down!” :-)

A great read, which is a MUST for any kid who loves trains! Do check out the various versions available too on Amazon:


10
Apr 09

REVIEW: Thomas the Tank Engine Story Collection

thomas-the-tank-engine-collectionWe bought this book when we where in Hong Kong last year from Book Buddy.

At HKD175, it’s quite pricey but since it’s a collection of the original stories (and illustrations!) on Thomas, Percy, Toby, Edward, Gordon, Henry and James, we bought it for Lucas.

He loved listening to the stories (which seems to be the source of the individual stories on the Thomas DVDs) but I have to skip some descriptive parts to hold on to his attention.

We are introduced to Thomas the Tank Engine, his relationship with Gordon, his forgotten guard, his infamous race with Bertie the bus and his ‘fishing’ adventures.

His favourite stories are of course about Thomas but he also likes to read about ‘Edward’s Day Out’ and James, especially ‘James and the Bootlace’, ‘Troublesome Trucks’ and ‘Buzz Buzz’.

Since he’s used to the images of Thomas on the DVDs, I was surprised to see that he didn’t mind the original illustrations, which look really different from the commercial ones!

Most of the illustrations in the book were by C. Reginald Dalby (e.g. the cover page) but there were also illustrations by John T. Kenney and Gunvor and Peter Edwards.

I love the illustrations by Gunvor and Peter Edwards, a brother and sister team because I find that the trains’ faces were more expressive and there was more ‘action’ in the illustrations :-)

You can check out almost the entire original collection of Thomas the Tank Engine storybooks at “The Real Lives of Thomas the Tank Engine” (including the new series created by Christopher Awdry, the Rev. Awdry’s son, for whom the Thomas books were written).

After reading this book, I wonder what the original collections look and feel like! Since the Thomas series has passed its 60th year anniversary, I wonder why they never hit Malaysian shores (a Commonwealth country) the way Enid Blyton did???

Anyway, here are “Thomas the Tank Engine” books I like on Amazon:


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