When I received the invitation to review this book, I never expected I would have to print out the book myself before going through them with our kiddos. Often, I get PDF copy of books that I reviewed (sometimes I prefer PDF as it is expensive to mail the paperback version to me in Malaysia) but there are times when I insisted to have the paperback version as well - this would normally be for books that I can use for our kiddos as I want them to flip and work through the book together.
But for this book, it is a first unique experience as the author is hoping to fund the production of the book through Kickstarter project. Since I can't request for a paperback version, I decided to print out the book myself and laminate it using our recently bought laminator machine. Why laminate when we can read it on our iPad or PC? The book is full of beautiful illustrations and I think it has a potential to be reuse again and again in future, hence the decision to print it out myself.
Title: A New Friend for Sally
Author: David Tang, Lora Lee (Illustrator)
Publisher: Tiny Robot Books (Independent book)
Paperback: 20 pages
Description from the product page:
"The tale of a lonely farm girl who really wants a pony, but instead her dad gets her a chicken... an animal it turns out that she's absolutely terrified of! A New Friend for Sally is a heartwarming story about unlikely friendships with the valuable lesson of not judging a book by its cover. This children's book is for kids aged 6-9."
Firstly, the illustration is very very nice. I love the details drawn and reading this book together with our 5 years old boy and 2.5 years old girl is just a wonderful delight! I think the colors would be much more intense if it is printed from a higher spec printer but since I printed it from our home printer, well, that is good enough for us as it is.
As our 5 years started his pre-K this year, I decided to read through word by word on each page (instead of summarizing the story and telling a simpler version based on his understanding which I previously do), stopping from time to time when there are words I think he may not hear before and then explaining to him what the words meant.
I can see our kiddos being very interested in this book, since this is kinda the first time they go through a book with different layout and feel. As I flipped through the laminated pages, I make use of the opportunity to play hide-and-seek with them as well, asking them from time to time to look for certain objects and animals in the pages.
I use the opportunity from this book to teach our kiddos to:
- Not throw tantrum when things doesn't go your way. Just because whatever you wished for doesn't materialise, it doesn't mean the end of the world. We should pick up ourselves and move on and make the best of what we have.
- Be brave and face your fears. Just like Sally, even though she is terrified of her new pet chicken, things worked out in the end and they became the best-est of friends.
- Not judge a book by its cover. We should not be influenced by first impressions or our false sense of security.
In summary, it is a very fun book on friendship with educational values which can be instilled in our children. I can definitely see this book being read over and over and over again. Highly recommended and I hope this book will be marketed soon!!
You can find more info on this book at http://www.tinyrobotbooks.com/.
I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with a PDF copy of the book in order to facilitate my review. All opinions expressed in this post are my own. Please do your own research when purchasing products, as your opinions may differ from mine. And if you'd like to read my previous book reviews, you can do so by reading this post of mine called "My Book Reviews"
