Book Review - Tales of Oliver Pig and Frog and Toad Together/Read-a-Thon Recap

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

During the Read-a-Thon I read a lot of kids books for the simple reason that I have a kid, a 2 year old to be exact and if there was any way I was going to get any reading done I was going to have to compromise on content. With that in mind two of the books I read were Tales of Oliver Pig: Level 2 (Easy-to-Read, Puffin) by Jean Van Leeuwen with pictures by Arnold Lobel and Frog and Toad Together (I Can Read Book 2) by Arnold Lobel.

I really enjoyed reading the five tales of Oliver's life at home in Tales of Oliver Pig. Oliver and his family members are very lovable characters who are warm and face life with a gentle humor. There is one issue that I had with this book though I am not sure children would think of it the same way. Although each story showed Oliver at home they didn't exactly flow together. Each story stood on it's own. If they were read separately many one each day I don't think it would seem strange maybe it was just because I read the whole book in one sitting. Overall though I give it thumbs up.

The Frog and Toad books are ones that people requested a lot while I worked at the bookstore too. Again for whatever reason I never got around to reading any of them so when the Read-a-Thon came up I figured it was the perfect opportunity. Plus my son is becoming interested in longer books now so I though this would be a god one and boy was I right. I don't know why exactly but Frog and Toad seem to have some kind of magic that kids just understand. As soon as I started reading Frog and Toad Together to the little guy he was mesmerized, he listened intently to every single word and enjoyed pointing out and describing the activities of Frog and Toad in all the pictures. I will definitely get more Frog and Toad books in the future, these will be great books to offer as he grows into reading on his own.

Currently "Reading":
Magazine - November issue of Good Housekeeping
Book - A Wife's Guide to In-laws: How to Gain Your Husband's Loyalty Without Killing His Parents by Jenna D. Barry
Audio - Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Classic Regency Romance - Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem! by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith