Heave Ho! {Review and Giveaway}

Heave Ho! by Jose Lucio is a fun book about a worm trying to come up from underground with a little help from his friends (and a twist at the end!). It's a book about teamwork that appeals to a wide spectrum of ages.  

My Review: My first impression is that the book is printed on very high quality paper and bound nicely. It feels sturdy enough to survive countless readings with young hands, despite being a paperback. The illustrations are engaging and expressive and the story itself is very appealing. I wasn't sure if I was rooting for the worm or the opposition, but both sides showed innovative thinking and teamwork.

Kids' Review: Each of the kids enjoyed reading this book several times. It's a bit young for Jack (age 9), but he likes to read to his brother and sister, so it was a great book for that. All of the kids squealed with the twist at the end and agreed that it was their favorite part. They had fun choosing sides to root for! The animal illustrations are so fun - the kids loved them as much as the storyline. We all highly recommend this book! If you'd like to purchase this book, it is available here.

Now the fun part: The author was kind enough to provide two copies of this book for a giveaway! Enter via Rafflecopter below for a chance to win your own copy at no cost to you. :)

*We received a copy of this book from the author, but the review is purely our own.


a Rafflecopter giveaway

Farm Alphabet Book

Colin and I have been on our own this week while Jack visits his Grammy and Poppa out of town (he comes home tomorrow!).

We had fun the other night playing his new Super Why! ABC Letter Game - I just used the letter recognition cards since the rest were a bit above his current skill level. Since I can rarely get Colin to sit still to listen to an entire story, I decided to incorporate the Farm Alphabet Book by Jane Miller into the game.

To incorporate the book into the game, whenever Colin would pull a letter card and find the same letter on the board, we would look up that letter in the book and read that page.  So if Colin selected a 'b', we found the uppercase 'B' on the game board, then read the 'B' page out of the book.  It really worked out well and was fun.

This book was published in 2000 but the photos make it seem much older.  There is a page for each letter in the alphabet, complete with a photo and a description.  While the book's contents are aimed at young children, there is no sing-songy text or even any rhyming.

That said, Colin seemed to enjoy learning facts about the farm and farm animals.  One of his favorite pages was 'I' for Incubator.

He said, "I'm cold, Mama.  I need an incubator!".  Hearing him say a big word like incubator was entertaining in itself.

He also liked 'S' for Swan.  He kept asking my what the baby swans were called.  (Everything is "just a baby" around here these days).

What I thought about this book:  Overall, I liked it.  The photo quality isn't great, but many of the letter words are animals, which is always a big hit in our house.  Many of the animal pages talked about the real names for the mama, daddy and baby animal (stallion, mare, foal for example).  It was interesting to have Colin argue with me, "it's not a mare, mama, it's a mama horse!".  ;-)


What Colin thought about this book:  We read it again at bedtime after the game was put away.  At the end Colin said, "that was a good story, Mama!".  I think it gets his seal of approval.  :-)

Fall Book Series: When Autumn Comes

You may recognize this book from my Book Haul post from Saturday.  With the light rain and cooler weather tonight, I thought it would be great time to bring this book out.

I had some stiff competition from a certain toy catalogue that showed up in our mailbox today.

 Finally, after some convincing, we got down to business.

When Autumn Comes by Robert Maass is a book that uses real photos and simple words to show the beauty that is Autumn (yes, I'm biased - it's my favorite season).  It shows people painting fences, fixing roofs, putting up storm windows (ha! a totally foreign concept for us), beautiful red & yellow leaf piles prime for jumping and much more.

What I love about this book:  I can't say it enough, but I love the photographs.  The book was originally published 21 years ago, but the photos actually don't look too dated.  (Side note:  when I looked at the copyright date I thought, "oh, that wasn't too long ago".  Umm, yeah, it's been 21 years.  I'm old.)  I love that the book progresses in photos and words from the very tail end of summer to the first frost of winter.  The many fun colors for little ones and great conversation starting photos for the older kids makes this a great book for all ages.


What Jack loves about this book:  Jack can't help but love autumn because of my enthusiasm.  His favorite page, however, is one showing the first snowfall of winter.  It shows a family walking out on a snow covered dock to the river.  He said, "Mama, why are they walking out into the ocean?!?".  We had to stay on the page for a while.


What Colin loves about this book:  Colin absolutely loves the page with the "pumpkin people".  I don't know if it's the phrase or the photo that cracked him up more, but he wouldn't stop laughing.  If you go to Amazon, this is one of the pages they show you in the preview.

I paid a whole 25 cents for this book, but you can buy it at Barnes & Noble on-line for $8.09 (plus, it looks like some sellers are charging only $1.99) or from Amazon for $8.99, but it also qualifies for their 4-for-3 promotion.  Honestly, I don't think I could bring myself to pay that much though.  I would definitely try my local library first.