kamel622's Full Review: Sandra Boynton - Moo, Baa, LA LA LA
While walking around Menard’s (yes, you read that right…Menard’s) which is a Home Improvement type of store with lots of wood and nails and all the things you would need to do home improvement and repairs, I ran across a couple of shelves of books. I was rather surprised that this store carried books, and of course my eyes didn’t look first at the novels or home improvement books, but rather the children’s books caught my eye.
One book in particular seemed to shout ‘Take me home!’ Moo, Baa, La La La! by Sandra Boynton almost jumped into my cart by itself. I knew this cute little board book would be a fun read for my daycare children.
The Story
This book is a very simple one about animal sounds. While the animals are all drawn to look like what they are, they are drawn with a cartoonish look to them and very expressive faces too. The only page that has the animals dressed in clothing at all is the page where the three pigs say La La La! These three have suits, top hats and canes and appear to be dancing.
The thick pages have solid colored backgrounds of blues, greens, purple and bright pink. The text is a medium to large black lettering that is very easily seen on each of the pages.
The animals that are included with their sounds are a cow, a sheep, the three pigs, rhinoceroses, dogs, cats, a duck and a horse.
Quack!
Says the duck.
A horse says Neigh.
Then on the last page we see all of the animals together looking outward and appearing to look at the reader and the text reads:
(It’s quiet now. What do you say?)
My Feelings
I purchased this book a while ago and enjoyed reading it to all four of my daycare children, ages 3 – 5 years old. All of them enjoy it very much and have fun saying the lines along with me. They love making the animal sounds and particular love that the pigs first say La La La! rather than oinking. This page causes giggles every time we read it.
Because animal sounds are used in this book, it would be a great book for younger children to help them learn the sounds that animals make. I think if I were reading to very young children I might skip the page where the pigs say La La La! Only because I think it would confuse a child who doesn’t already know the actual sounds of the animals.
I do like that not only is there a page with a little dog saying Ruff Ruff Ruff! the next page shows larger dogs that say Bow Wow Wow! I liked that although they are both dogs I was able to point out that they didn’t both sound the same way. We even discussed how grown-ups and children sound a bit different and talked about the different sounds that birds can make.
The illustrations are cute and eye appealing and the background colors make the pages easy on the eyes. With very little background detail the focus is the animal on each page.
I love the ending of this book and how it leaves room for children to say what they want to. Sammi loved to say that she we could say “anything!” and Sonny said that he could say “moo cow.” With each reading they would usually come up with different responses, depending on what they were thinking about at the time.
I recommend this colorful little board book for children from infant through around 7 or 8 years old. It would be a great book for an older sibling to read to a younger sister or brother. I think both would have fun with it.
Nuts & Bolts
Moo, Baa, La La La! was written and illustrated by Sandra Boynton, an author that is quickly becoming one of my favorites. Books like But Not the Hippopotamus and Belly Button Book and One, Two, Three! Have held the attention of my daycare children over and over.
This 14-page board book was published by Little Simon, an imprint of Simon and Schuster Children’s Publishing, in 1984 and reprinted in 1995.
This book is recommended for children from infants to preschoolers, although children much older can have fun with this one as well.
The jacket price on this book is $5.99 US and $8.99 CAN.
Ideal for reading aloud, this classic book encourages youngsters to imitate the sounds made by Boynton s seriously silly signature animals. (Baby/Pres...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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