Happy, Happy Mother's Day (A Just One More Book : Just for You)

PreSchool-Grade 2-- Well-drawn illustrations are the highlights of these two books. Unfortunately, the texts don't live up to the quality of the pictures. In Happy, Happy Mother's Day! a generous giraffe gives away all of his flower seeds but one, and from that tiny beginning, a tall sunflower grows--just right for a mother giraffe. The story suffers from rhymed phrases that destroy the natural flow of an otherwise competent text. Sillyhen's Big Surprise is a simple version of the familiar theme found in Joanna Cole's It's Too Noisy! (Crowell, 1989) and Margot Zemach's It Could Always Be Worse (Farrar, 1976). Here, Tripp's rhymes result in too-cute, stilted, and forced exchanges between characters.Reasonably creative story ideas and well-rendered illustrations deserve better writing--and so do beginning readers. --Sharron McElmeel, Cedar Rapids Community Schools, IA
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