Children’s Hour is a feature here at Lucybird’s Book Blog every Thursday where I’m looking at children’s picture books. As I work in a nursery I get plenty of opportunities to look at picture books, and to see what the kids think of them so it really makes sense to use those experiences.
I’d love to hear everybody’s experiences of the books I review too, and feel free to post me a link to your own reviews, I’d love to make this a bit interactive.
The image (if you were wondering) is taken from Shirley’s Hughes’ Alfie and Annie-Rose books which I loved as a child.
When I came back from jury duty there were two new books in toddler room, on of them was Puffin Peter (the other was a book which was loved so much a few years ago that it literally got read to death).
Puffin Peter is a story about two friends, Peter and Paul. One day Peter gets lost in a storm and can’t find his friend Paul, but he meets a whale who tries to help him. It is very loosely based on the rhyme Two Little Dicky Birds.
As a story it’s very similar to Monkey Puzzle, but more complex in a way. The whale listens to Peter’s instructions and finds things which meet all of his descriptions (rather than the latest one as in Monkey Puzzle). It makes the whale seem smarter, but it’s less funny.
There’s no rhyme either, which makes it less interesting for the kids. They still liked to see if the different animals were Paul, but they were less focused than they would have been if we were reading a favourite.
I really like the pictures. They are bright and quite atmospheric.
Buy it:
Paperback (£5.99)
