Rainbow's Revelations: The Guinea Pig Story by Natalya Popova
| Rainbow's Revelations: The Guinea Pig Story by Natalya Popova | |
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| Category: Confident Readers | |
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Reviewer: Sue Magee
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| Summary: Based on the real-life stories of Miss Rainbow the Guinea pig, this gentle book looks at family, love and loss and the care of small animals. It's aimed at the five to seven age group but there's some elegant word-play which will appeal to adults. | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 54 | Date: July 2008 |
| Publisher: Lulu.com | |
| ISBN: 978-1409213369 | |
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I've always thought that the concept of matching socks is somewhat over-rated and it was a real pleasure to discover that Miss Rainbow, heroine of Rainbow's Revelations: The Guinea Pig Story feels exactly the same - but talented Miss Rainbow is prepared to take the idea a step further and turn this into a fashion statement. For once her messy ways – everything seems to be kept on her floor-drobe - is working to her advantage and she's even planning her own television programme, called Fire Without Matches.
She's soon brought down to earth though when she wakes in her cardboard box in the kitchen as her owner's father collects our young entrepreneur to do a stint of grass eating in her outside run - but it's not long before she's planning another business. She's going to be a personal lawnmower trainer.
'I'm never full of grass,' Miss Rainbow said, laughing delightfully, 'but I'm always full of ideas.'
And there we have the first of five gentle chapters about the irrepressible Miss Rainbow, who learns to deal with the loss of a friend, protects her owner from a dangerous snake (actually another family pet – Snaky Flaky the corn snake) and finds a new companion called Black and Decker.
Natalya Popova has not only written the text to this delightful book, she's also done the illustrations and she captures Miss Rainbow to perfection, with a face which looks as though she's just eaten a rather large biscuit on the sly. Her coat is stripy and she has long eye lashes which suggest that she's wearing far too much mascara for one so young. I'd love to have seen many more of these illustrations and I have to admit that Miss Rainbow with her laptop, phone and headset is a personal favourite to which I've returned several times.
There's gentle humour in the text and the stories will delight any child who's familiar with guinea pigs. Children who aren't familiar with them might need a few explanations about such items as gravity bottles and quite why Miss Rainbow was assiduously cutting the grass. There's knowledge and education delivered with a very light hand and some of my daughter's childhood pets were brought firmly back to mind. It's a good book to introduce a child to the joys of keeping guinea pigs and even if that wasn't the plan it could well work out cheaper than a cat or a dog!
The vocabulary is well within the reach of the newly confident reader. If I had to be very picky I'd mention that the text doesn't always make for easy reading aloud, but I suspect that this is a point which will bypass the target audience. The stories are better than the usual childhood fare with a range of more challenging topics. It's a book which will probably appeal more to girls than boys but the gentle humour is certain to appeal to the five to seven age group.
I'd like to thank the author for sending a copy to The Bookbag.
This is Bookbag's first book about a Guinea pig but we can recommend a book about mice – Whortle's Hope by Robin Jarvis and also Hero and the Sinking Ships by Richard Hamilton and Sam Hearn if you're interested in rats.
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You can read more book reviews or buy Rainbow's Revelations: The Guinea Pig Story by Natalya Popova at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
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