Welcome to Book Reviews: Edition 5. This week I will be reviewing: Two Tough Birds, Animals and Colors, and My Place: Where I Live and What I Do.
Two Tough Birds
Two Tough Birds is written by Sarah Jane Conklin. While I enjoyed the story and the theme of the story immensely, the main rhyme was a little awkward to read. Mostly, I feel as if there were too many dee dee dees added that it became cumbersome. To some degree, I also felt the overall story ran on just a little bit. Otherwise, the story is adorable, and it’s really great at normalizing toughness and courage for women and girls. Although the narrator doesn’t explicitly come out and say (or really indicate in any way) that she is female, it is assumed because of the author’s gender. This makes this book a really powerful way to neutralize gender assumptions. The narrator can also be seen as male for male readers, but for me, the message is more powerful if the narrator is female. 4/5 stars from me.
Animals and Colors
Animals and Colors is written by Melinda A. Deterville and Melaine M. Deterville. It is a very simple book. Each page has an animal, and the book proceeds to tell us the color of the animal (e.g. The bird is blue). Towards the end, the book starts asking what colors the child is wearing and what their favorite color is. Although understanding the concept of favorite colors for a child that is still learning their colors can be challenging, I don’t think this is an issue for the book. This book is designed for young toddlers from about 1 to 2.5 years of age, and is perfect for what it is. 5/5 stars from me.
My Place: Where I Live and What I Do
My Place: Where I Live and What I Do is written by Linda Booysen. I didn’t really like it for a couple of reasons. First, the pictures look somewhat unprofessional–not a major thing, but it did bug me. Secondly, there were issues with the theme. The title leads the reader to believe the book is going to be about someone’s home, but the story starts with the main character waking up. It creates an immediate disconnect between the reader and the book. Once the story got going, it was good, but it was hard to get past the issues with the theme. This story gets 3 stars out of 5 from me.
Summary and Recommendations
Based on my readings, I recommend both Two Tough Birds and Animals and Colors. Both stories are great for their chosen audiences. Thank you for reading my Book Reviews: Edition 5.
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