The Messy Book by Maudie Powell-Tuck and Richard Smythe
| The Messy Book by Maudie Powell-Tuck and Richard Smythe | |
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| Category: For Sharing | |
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Reviewer: Ruth Ng
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| Summary: Tidying up a mess is never much fun, unless you're reading about somebody else's mess in a story! | |
| Buy? yes | Borrow? yes |
| Pages: 36 | Date: July 2016 |
| Publisher: Little Tiger Press | |
| ISBN: 9781848692794 | |
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When cat makes a big mess, he'd rather come up with any idea than tidy it up! He tries to get rid of his mess in various different ways, unsuccessfully, until there is no other option but to tidy up properly. It's a familiar scenario for many families, I'm sure, and told here with a great deal of charm!
Poor dog, he does try really very hard to just get cat to tidy up nicely, even suggesting at one point that he will help and that they can sing a tidy up song (well, it works for Disney Princesses!) Cat is having none of it, however. First of all he pushes all the mess off into the jungle. The jungle animals are, unsurprisingly, rather upset about this. Well, everyone apart from Giraffe who finds a hat in the mess and puts it on! Cat's next option is to jump on it to push it down, pushing it down into the sea. The sea creatures also do not want all of cat's mess, and send it back. Giraffe (with his hat), however, discovers a penguin in the water, so he seems very happy with how things are going.
Poor dog is losing patience by this point, but cat has another idea. He decides to just suck all of his mess up into the hoover (which dog declares isn't proper tidying!) and of course, the hoover is unhappy about the large amount of mess and begins to make some suspicious rumblings...one big explosion later and the mess is there all over again, waiting to be tidied up. Will cat finally give in? Don't worry, it's a satisfactory ending, although I will add that after they have finally, properly, tidied the mess they do then go on to make more mess whilst celebrating! I'm not entirely unhappy with this ending since it does seem to be the way of things in a house with small children that I tidy up only for everything to then get messed up again!
The illustrations are delightful in this book. Both dog and cat are real characters, cat with his cheeky face, and dog who has a definite long-suffering look about him. He's a very sweet looking dog, and I am partial to a good dog in a story. My favourite pictures, however, were of giraffe and penguin who, after discovering each other under the sea, form a firm friendship, united by their love of hats perhaps. The best one is where penguin finds a cake in amongst the mess and makes himself a cake hat, much to giraffe's bemusement The pictures are funny, and the whole book has a very immediate feel to it since the story is told through speech bubbles from each character, giving you lots of opportunities to invent funny voices for everyone, if that's the sort of thing that makes bedtime more fun for you! This is a fun story, with lots of action, and even a little bit about taking care of the environment, should you wish to highlight that. There are lots of obvious opportunities to talk about being tidy, obviously, but mostly this is just a funny story that you can enjoy reading together.
Further reading suggestion: For more messy fun try Elephant by Petr Horacek or The Bear With Sticky Paws by Clara Vulliamy
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You can read more book reviews or buy The Messy Book by Maudie Powell-Tuck and Richard Smythe at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
You can read more book reviews or buy The Messy Book by Maudie Powell-Tuck and Richard Smythe at Amazon.com.
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