4 out of 4 stars
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Puffy and the Formidable Foe by Marie G. Lepkowski, Ann M. Hannon and Margaret B. Hannon, tells the story of kitten Puffy who embarks on an extraordinary adventure. One day he leaves his house to hunt a rat, but as he wonders off into the forests, his adventure has a big surprise for him in store. The little creature he encounters in the depths of the woods is not a rat, it is a cat! A rather strange cat Puffy thinks, "a whiskered "Kitty" with odor obscene", that doesn't meow like other kitties do. He has never been told that this little creature is called a Skunk, and finds out about his terrible smell the hard way. Totally covered in his "odor obscene" he runs back home, where he is washed and cleaned and decides that from that day on he will stay away from all kitties that don't meow.
Like most children's books do, this book has an important lesson to tell to its little readers. Although going on an adventure can be fun, bad things can happen too if you wander off alone into unfamiliar lands. You have to be careful with things you don't know, as not everything out there is good and fun. Using the skunk as a metaphor for the bad and the woods as the unknown, the writers managed to write a cute and pleasant story that is very suitable to even the smallest amongst us to carry forward a lesson.
The book is beautifully illustrated with colourful drawings at every page. The little texts, which are written in rhyme, fit into the drawings, making every page a little adventure you can explore with your kids. The drawings have a somewhat innocent and very accessible character, because they very much resemble the drawings a kid would make. At the end of the book you can even find a coloring page of kitty cat Puffy, which according to the writers can be used to reward the kids after completing a little discussion about the book.
This focus of the authors on making the message clear to kids and opening up a discussion, is what made the book truly remarkable for me. The book opens with a whole page dedicated to helping your children learn with this book. It suggests simple things such as reading the book aloud to your child, but also has more substantive proposals such as "discuss what Puffy should have done" or "have your child re-tell the story in his own words". The authors even give an emailadres to which you can send and email for a free list of the "Big Words" in the book to encourage the child's vocabulary, or another colouring page. This involvement of the writers with their audience is something I haven't seen before in any other children's book.
Based on the story, the artistic illustrations and the incredible commitment of the authors to their work I give this book 4 out of 4 stars. Although the book itself is quite short, the actual story is only 8 pages long, the material presented to process the story will be able to make the reading experience as long a you like. For the smallest readers it can be a perfect bedtime story, while reading it to/with your bigger ones can present you with an interactive, educational and above all a fun reading activity.
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Puffy and the Formidable Foe
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