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At only 18 pages, this is a book designed to be read with/by young children. (Amazon notes that it is for children ages 3-6.) Each page is illustrated, and all but two pages feature one full-page illustration. The text is boldly imposed over, under, or within the illustrations. The dedication is “For my little angels/devils, xxx” so one would assume that Ms. Jackson has first-hand experience with the subject, and this is perhaps somewhat biographical.
This is an affectionate look at a normal, frantic morning in a two-child household, where “Mummy” is trying to get both of her young, uncooperative children up, fed, and ready for school. The story is told in first person by the daughter. We never learn her name, but her brother’s name is Matthew. We also do not learn which of them is older, but there doesn’t seem to be a large disparity of age between them.
The morning starts, of course, with Mummy trying to get her two children out of bed. She starts with a soft voice, which yields no results. Then she “roars” at them, “Out. Of. Bed. Now!” The accompanying illustration shows Mummy stretched to her full height, face raised, mouth open, eyes closed, and tongue out, giving the appearance that she is singing an aria rather than yelling at her children. We follow the events of the morning as the children eat breakfast, chase each other, dance, brush their teeth, roll around on the floor, play music and squabble. Mummy does a lot of yelling.
I found some of the language to be humorous. For example, when Matthew does not want to get out of bed, he “scrunches himself into a giggly ball and makes blow-off sounds with his mouth.” The daughter decides to play her recorder to make Mummy feel “less rushy, but it’s really hard to make my recorder heard over her voice. I play louder.” This, accompanied by an illustration of Mummy – you guessed it – yelling. Matthew tells his sister that she has a “big doughnut-head,” and then bites her nose! When Mummy finally gets the children outside, we are simply told, “Matthew is giggling. Mummy isn’t.”
For reading instruction, the vocabulary is fairly simple and easy. There are no difficult words or complex sentences. However, the text is presented in a variety of fonts, and sometimes it is written diagonally instead of horizontally. This is pleasing to the eye, but for small children just learning to read, this may make it more difficult.
The language point in this book seems to be the words “nearly...instead.” “Nearly” is always written in bold italics, and appears several times throughout the story. (“I nearly get out of bed. Instead I make blow-off sounds back to Matthew.” “I nearly say sorry to Mummy. Instead I tell her what I want for breakfast.”) At times it feels a bit forced, and is used in a way that I wouldn’t use it, such as when the daughter is playing her recorder, she says, “I nearly move on to my grand finale.” Or when Mummy is talking in the car, “We nearly listen. Instead Matthew makes his hand into a puppet that’s saying what Mummy’s saying.”
I would hesitate to buy this book for my children for two reasons: First, Mummy does a lot of yelling and shouting. Every depiction of Mummy, except for the first one, shows her either angry or hands-on-hips hollering at the top of her voice. I’m not sure this is the picture I would want to present to my children of how to resolve issues. It’s meant to be humorous, but the underlying message could teach impressionable young children the wrong thing. Second, “vampire zombie” is mentioned twice in the story. This is purely a personal viewpoint, but this is not something to which I would want to expose my young children, even in a humorous context such as this.
School Mornings Make Mummy A Bit Bonkers is fun to read. It will make you chuckle more than once as you read the antics of the children, doing things that only make sense to them (the daughter plays the recorder with her nostrils!). The illustrations, while not of the highest quality, are more than adequate for this type of book. They are big, bold and colorful, and will capture the interest of small children. The entire book can be read in 5-10 minutes, appropriate to the attention span of little ones. I rate this book 3 out of 4 stars.
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