Leo Antolini

The story is told by a young boy, celebrating the immense world of books, and a fascination with animals. The main character expresses his love of reading, the way books offer never ending worlds and unbridled imagination. In particular, this young reader uses books to learn about animals, and pretend that he is one. The narrative uses rhyming couplets to present these ideas. The ideas are good, the execution not as impressive. The framework is about the joys of reading, but the majority of the text is the boy imagining what he would do if he were a particular animal. If you didn't see him reading at the beginning and end of the book, you would just assume he was engaging in imaginative play about animals. I love promoting the richness of reading, but this book mostly promotes the wonder of animals, using books as a jumping point. Both are worthy ideas, but they don't work together here. I would have preferred it if the writer had just focused on animals as the main theme, and not tied it into a love of reading framework that fits oddly with the rest of the story. The illustrations, however, are cute and cartoony. The rhyme scheme doesn't feel forced, even if it is not striking. The best feature of this book, however, is that it is part of Leapfrog's Tag Junior series. These books work with the tag junior device, a little robot that downloads an audio track for each book you buy, and allows children to interact with the books in novel ways. Not only does the tag junior act like an audio book, reading the text aloud, it also will activate on various parts of the illustrations, making sound effects, music, or even informing children of pertinent facts. For this book, you can hear the noises the animals make, background sound effects, and trivia questions about that page. My daughters love it, and I find it a wonderful innovation. We have other books that are better on their own merits (like Panda Bear, Panda Bear), but this one is a decent read, and a lot of fun when used in combination with the tag junior.… (lisätietoja)