Horrid Henry's Thank You Letter by Francesca Simon and Tony Ross
| Horrid Henry's Thank You Letter by Francesca Simon and Tony Ross | |
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| Category: Confident Readers | |
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Reviewer: Ruth Ng
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| Summary: Specifically aimed at early readers, this is a lively Horrid Henry story packed full of colour illustrations. | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 80 | Date: January 2011 |
| Publisher: Orion Children's Books | |
| ISBN: 978-1444001051 | |
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I'm sure most of us have, at one time or another, found ourselves being forced to write a huge pile of thank you letters to distant relatives, perhaps even for gifts that we weren't all that excited to receive in the first place! This is the predicament that Henry finds himself in, and rather than knuckle down to get them over and done with he, of course, procrastinates as much as possible before coming up with an ingenious, money-making scheme!
I do like the Horrid Henry stories. He's so terribly bad, sometimes to the point where I feel uncomfortable reading them, but of course kids love the anarchy of it all and revel in his bad attitude and bad behaviour. As my daughter is only four we're still reading these stories aloud to her. She particularly enjoyed this early reader edition since it has so many colour illustrations by the wonderful Tony Ross. They helped keep her attention through the story, and they're perfect for early readers going it alone since they break up the text into small, manageable chunks as well as giving clues as to what's happening in the story.
The story itself is fun and we see Henry get himself into more and more trouble with his scheming and grand ideas. The text is broken up into short chapters, and there's never more than a few sentences per page, so it would give real encouragement and a sense of achievement to a child just starting out in reading for themselves. I expect it will help reluctant boys to read too since Henry is so awful and funny - much like the Just William stories, although Henry is more accessible for younger readers to read themselves - and it's just as much fun for girls to read too.
I had only a couple of quibbles with the book, and they're very boring parental quibbles - we don't get to see Henry punished for his behaviour at the end (although it must surely be coming!), and also Henry at one point in the story tells his little brother Peter to 'shut up' which, for some reason, stuck in my little girl's head and saw her stomping around the house shouting 'shut up, shut up!' She'd just returned from a birthday party and so we thought she'd picked it up from someone naughty there, but later she brought the book over to me and said she'd learned it from there! Otherwise this is a well-designed, well written story to be enjoyed by young and old alike!
Thanks to the publishers for sending it to Bookbag.
If you'd like to read more of Horrid Henry's antics, check out Horrid Henry Rocks by Francesca Simon and Tony Ross.
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You can read more book reviews or buy Horrid Henry's Thank You Letter by Francesca Simon and Tony Ross at Amazon.com.
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