Mem Fox is one of my favourite children’s authors. In her new book, Fox has teamed up with a former student Olivia Rawson to write the funny picture book A Giraffe in the Bath.
This is a beautiful book to read aloud to the kids and one that my preschooler wanted to hear “just one more time”. As with Where is the Green Sheep?, there is sparse but cleverly written text. The rhythmic nature of the text allowed me to pause at the end of the sentences and my preschooler could chip in with the end word (the pictures giving clues too), and he look forward to the opportunity to have his turn “reading”.
My preschooler loved the concept of animals doing crazy things and especially loved the roo in the loo and the elephant that rocked. The detailed illustrations by Kerry Argent brought up many talking points like “whose shadow is that?” and “the koala is reading the same book as us”.
A Giraffe in the Bath also held the attention of my very active 14 month old. The beautiful pictures and the short text allowed me to read the entire book to him sitting on my knee, without even squirm!
Inspired by the fabulous book reviews by Tania McCartney on Kids’ Book Review I am going to be adding a snapshot of the book’s details at the end of my book reviews.
Title: A Giraffe in the Bath
Author: Mem Fox and Olivia Rawson
Illustrator: Kerry Argent
Publisher: Viking (Penguin)
For ages: 0 – 5
RRP: $24.95
Author’s Website: Mem Fox
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I can’t remember where it was now, but I recently commented on how much we love “Hunwick’s Egg” in our house. We haven’t read it in a little while now, but even when Princess was a baby we would read it, and as she got older we had fun searching for the different animals and crying “ouch!” whenever we “touched” the echidna’s spikes.
“Koala Lou” was another favourite. I can’t remember what the phrase is now (and Princess is asleep so I won’t disturb her and find the book!), but we loved almost screaming out parts of the book. It always made her giggle. That, and putting on a kookaburra (or maybe it is a cocky?) ‘ s voice for the start of her tree climbing race.
We still occasionally pull out “Time for Bed” also. It’s a very soothing read, perfect for helping little ones get to sleep. Unless, of course, you are a bit raucous making the sounds of the animals on each page.
Mem Fox IS fantastic for kids. I so wish I had been able to go hear her talk when she came out locally recently.
Yep, we LOVE Mem Fox too. Our favourites are “Time for bed” and “Where is the green sheep?” (for the age of our children), but I also love the classic “Possum Magic”, and “Hunwick’s egg”, “Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partridge” and “Wombat Divine” for older kids.
I watched her DVD on literacy development in children a couple of years ago. (Sorry, I can’t remember what the DVD is called). While I love her ideas about immersing children in a literature from a young age, I do think she throws the baby out with the bath-water a little in her total rejection of phonics teaching. That is an age-old debate though, not really one to get into here!
We love green sheep here as well. I haven’t heard her views on literacy development but I’m a bit surprised, her books lend themselves so well to phonics! However I’ve noticed it is very much a pendulum – phonics is fashionable but misses things so it swings to whole language, currently it’s swinging back to phonics. In reality of course you need a bit of both.
Have to come back and mention that this inspired me to revisit “Koala Lou” tonight at bedtime.
Princess had forgotten it and was sure she didn’t want to hear it until I looked her in the eye and said “Koala Lou, I DO love you!” By the end of the book she was grinning from ear to ear and we were having to repeat it together, looking each other in the eyes as we did.
She also killed herself laughing at my kookaburra voice for “On your marks, Get set. Go!” and she was having to have goers at it herself. When Dadda came in for his turn to say goodnight she had to do them all again.
A wonderful bedtime
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