Wonderful Wriggly Worm by Eugenie Summerfield
Yet another book comes my way for which I am completely the wrong age bracket. Too young to remember Listen With Mother (he lied, as it ended when I was ten) and just a bit too old to be the target audience. Still, I cannot help but appreciate the pleasant dramas within these hard covers.
| Wonderful Wriggly Worm by Eugenie Summerfield | |
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| Category: Confident Readers | |
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Reviewer: John Lloyd
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| Summary: The first collection of short short stories of the wonderful worm, his lovely friends and his amazing adventures. A recommended book for bedtimes and a little bit beyond. | |
| Buy? Maybe | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 80 | Date: October 2006 |
| Publisher: Book Guild Ltd | |
| ISBN: 978-1846240683 | |
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The wonderful Wriggly Worm certainly gets about a bit – if he’s not meeting and helping French caterpillars, or having fun runs with all his friends, he’s escaping from fishermen who want him for bait, or the Gibble Gobble Gormey. This book contains fourteen snappy five or six-page adventures, with a full page picture each, which only add to the charm with their bugs’ life portraits.
The cast is fine as well – Sloppy Slug, who is constantly eating, Brown Snail, who is never more eloquent than when he says “Cor!”, which he does a lot, the little Brown Snails – who never mention where Mrs Brown Snail went to, mysteriously. And that’s before the arrival of the bizarre talking twig, and I won’t mention all the various beasties and nasties that are encountered.
There’s no excuse for not putting on a silly voice for all the characters (my Sloppy Slug sounded like Jim Broadbent, and I don’t know why) and letting your young one enjoy the story. There’s certainly nothing to scare them, and nothing too plummy or old-fashioned, whatever the source on Radio 4. There is a slight educational aspect to the stories, but done subtly – the fun run comes from a simple exercise session, and another story speaks volumes about modern art.
On the whole there is nothing negative to report about the experience, except for the format of it. As much as the stories are great fun, fourteen of them for a tenner seems a bit on the steep side, and I do wonder if the hardback volume we have is the best, and best value, way of presenting them.
Still, the contents remain great for a little tale to be read to the youngest audience, and once the longer words in the vocabulary are absorbed the reader choosing her or his books from the pile for the first time might well want to turn to the Wriggly Worm for their reading, extending the shelf-life by a couple of years. I would recommend the book as great fun, losing half a mark for value – it remains an investment well worth considering and enjoying.
I would like to thank the author for arranging for the book to be sent to the Bookbag.
If they enjoy silly characters, they might also like A Children's Treasury of Milligan.
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