It’s Monday, What Are You Reading? is hosted by Kathryn at The Book Date, and adapted by Kellee at Unleashing Readers and Jen at Teach Mentor Texts with a children’s/YA focus. This weekly roundup is a great way to discover new blogs and bloggers, share recommended (or not so recommended….) titles, and add to your ever-growing to-read list.
I really enjoyed Warning: Do Not Open This Book, but I didn’t like this sequel quite as much. The premise is simple, yet kind of disturbing – whenever you close the book, all the animal characters are trapped inside in the dark, which frightens and upsets them. The animals desperately beg, barter and plead with the reader not to entrap them in the dark. Worse still, several animal characters are apparently injured in the process of closing the book, and are depicted wrapped in bandages with pained expressions. If a child wants to finish reading the book and put it away they have no choice but close the book and injure the poor animals trapped inside. I’m sure lots of kinds will find it hilarious, but the animals just look so sad!
I am Fox.
I am Pig.
I am little.
I am big.
I have a box. I like to play. I think I will trick Pig today.
Assuming, of course, that you didn’t find the antics of Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner emotionally scarring on account of their wanton violence, I highly recommend taking a look at this silly little levelled reader. The text is similar to Mo Willems’ Elephant and Piggie books in both length and complexity, and features a similar conversational structure between two characters, but this title is definitely all about the slapstick. Lots of fun.
Hope you’ve all been having a great reading week!!
I liked A Pig, A Fox and A Box. It was cute. A lot of my readers enjoy this one because of the easy readability and humor. The Geisel Award is one that always baffles me. I’m usually way off base on that one!
Oh me too…..some of the things that make kids laugh I totally get, but other things just make me shake my head and feel old and uncool. 😉
Both of these sound like fun, but I have to agree I wouldn’t like shutting animals up in a books and hurting or scaring them.
I’m such a giant sap, I’m sure a lot of kids won’t mind, but tiny Jane would have been horrified! Once a sap, always a sap. 🙂
What adorable books! Thanks for sharing, and for visiting my blog. Enjoy your week!
Thanks for stopping by! 🙂
My oldest granddaughter loves A Pig, A Fox and A Box, but probably doesn’t even know about Wile E. Coyote. I understand about the Please Open This Book. It does sound a little alarming! I haven’t read it yet, maybe won’t! Thanks Jane.
I really love readers that can do so much with so little text, I actually recommended this one to a teacher who was working with an ESL teen, and she said it cracked him up! 🙂
I’ve ordered up a few copies of A Pig, A Fox and A Box since I’ve read good things about it on different blogs. Please Open This Book does sound a bit sociopathic… I’m not sure I would like it either.
A Pig, A Fox and a Box is silly fun, I think kids will enjoy it.
Please Open This Book is on my list! The cover is so alluring! I just haven’t seen it in my library yet! Thanks for sharing.
I feel like you are in my classroom. I think a child reads me A Pig, A Fox, etc almost every day! And in my room we LOVED Please Open this Book! It is also read OFTEN – along with the first title. My students find it completely hilarious!
I think as a kid it’s really satisfying when a naughty character gets their comeuppance, it’s comforting when at least something in this crazy world feels fair – poor old Fox definitely learns not to play tricks on friends any more!
Please Open This Book I would be concerned about too. I can see where a child (especially a sensitive child) would be really bothered by having to close the book- the por animals. I think as a kid it would have bothered me! So yeah I don’t really get that one. The other looks cute. 🙂
Yes, that definitely would have been me as a kid – growing up I felt bad about eating my chocolate bunnies, so hurting story book animals would certainly have bothered me!
A Pig, a Fox and a Box were also a problem for me because I felt bad when the character was squished. 😉 I must be a sap right along with you.
HA! Hurray for sappy readers. 🙂