Waterstones I Will Surprise My Friend!
1237 ratings
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Price: £7.99
Brand: Waterstones
Description: One of a series of delightfully humorous award-winning tales for beginner readers from an internationally acclaimed author-illustrator. Gerald is careful. Piggie is not. Piggie cannot help smiling. Gerald can. Gerald worries so that Piggie does not have to. Gerald and Piggie are best friends. In I Will Surprise My Friend!, Gerald and Piggie want to play a game and surprise each other, but the best surprise is the one they least expect.
Category: Books
Merchant: Waterstones
Product ID: 9781406338461
Delivery cost: 2.99
ISBN: 9781406338461
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Author: Dragonflies & Autumn Leaves
Rating: 5
Review: Brilliant early reader! I may even dare say THE BEST early reader books. So many early readers are tedious, or have inconsistent difficulty levels in their text, making it frustrating and/or boring for kids. Elephant & Piggie had my kids giggling, and the adults & older kids leaning in to listen and laugh, too. My 12 year old still smiles about Elephant & Piggie (instead of groaning like at so many of the "babyish" things they've outgrown, because it is humor that all ages can appreciate.) The text difficulty is just right for beginning readers. The fact that the words are in thought or speech bubbles, with varied fonts that express emotion, draws the kids' eyes and interest to the words. The emotions & themes of friendship with a big dash of humor, plus expressive animation are also perfect for kids. I love Dr. Seuss & some of the P.D. Eastman early reader books, but these are a new classic that deliver what every kid should have as their first experience with books: delight! These are worth owning in your library. Even once Elephant & Piggie help your little one along in their reading journey, they will still be treasured and enjoyed long after for their lovable characters. I still enjoy re-reading Elephant & Piggie books. "I Will Surprise My Friend," was our first introduction to Elephant & Piggie, and is perhaps still our favorite. It can make a young kid giggle with absolute mirth, and is the first one I recommend to those being introduced to Elephant & Piggie.
Author: Ulyyf
Rating: 4
Review: Early readers can be such a pain. They have to be easy to read, so they include a lot of very short, repetitititive sentences. I bet you can quote Dick and Jane here: See Spot. See Spot run. Run, Spot, run! Run, run, run! Short, easy to read, lots of practice with those three words... and boring as HECK. Who wants to read that more than once? Or they do the same thing, but with rhyming: See the cat. The cat is fat. The fat cat sat. Sat on the mat. The fat cat sat on the mat. See the rat! Ye gods. Now your kid will always be able to read -at words, but they'll read them all in a dreadful monotone, ill-suited for anything other than the phone book. Gotta indoctrinate them young to think reading is dull and boring! Well, there is hope. Elephant and Piggie! This series does everything right. First of all, the text is all dialog. Exciting, funny dialog with LOTS AND LOTS OF EXCLAMATION POINTS!!!! Ever see a first grader write? EVERY! SENTENCE! NEEDS! AN! EXCLAMATION! POINT!!!! YES IT DOES! You can't help but ham it up when you read, no matter HOW much you hate reading. And when there is repetition - as there needs to be, to help children practice - it's natural. Piggie will say something, and then Elephant will repeat it in a disbelieving way. Or Elephant will say something and Piggie will repeat it to agree with him. (Doesn't happen much in this one.) Secondly, the pictures are active and engaging and funny and dramatic. Not much distracting detail, either. But while the pictures are so active and engaging and funny and dramatic, they provide a LITTLE bit of help to the shaky reader... but not so much that they think they can look at the picture and not bother with those troublesome words. Thirdly, the books are just interesting. When you're learning something now, you have to do it more than once. It's good for kids to re-read the same books over and over again... and I'm sure it saves the teacher money on stocking her classroom shelves! But what child, honestly, wants to read a beginning reader again? It's boring! They read it once, are you happy? Now they want to get to the good stuff! I promise you, kids will want to read these books over and over again. I don't know through educational experience, no... but I know through watching my own two nieces. I know through looking at adults eagerly picking up these books to read. Adults! There's just something about them. My favorite part of this book? Has to be comparing Gerald's visions of what might have happened to Piggie (gotten lost and fallen off a cliff, gotten snatched by a huge bird, gotten eaten by a monster) with Piggie's visions of what might have happened to Gerald (gone to eat lunch).
