Muddy Paws’ New Friends and Bunny Loves to Read, book review

One of the great things about being a parent is re-reading your favorite children’s books to your children.  Of course another great thing is discovering new books that will become their favorites that they’ll read to their children.  Along the way though, you’ll discover what I call library, or stock books that won’t be elevated to the status of an heirloom.  They’re entertaining for what they are, and they might become some child’s favorite book, but just weren’t enjoyed by your child.  Muddy Paws’ New Friends by Steve Smallman and Simon Mendez and Bunny Loves to Read by Peter Bently and Deborah Melmon are in that category.

Muddy Paws’ New Friends

Muddy Paws’ New Friends is about Muddy Paws going to puppy school.   It features large images of the three puppies playing together, chasing butterflies, running through laundry and being cute.  If your child loves puppies they could like Muddy Paws’ New Friends.

Our kids love dogs, have two at home, but couldn’t get into the book at all.  I think it was due to the illustrations.  The pictures are well done, but done in a soft, dreamy, Normal Rockwell way.  It’s a slow paced book that has big words for a good night book and might be worth checking out at the library to see if your kids enjoy it before purchasing it.

Bunny Loves to Read

Bunny Loves to Read does a great job of capturing the imagination of children.  It’s the story of Buster Bunny and his love of books.  His animal friends, frog, squirrel, rabbit and mouse come over and try to get him to go play outside.  Suddenly it starts to rain and the friends have to spend time inside reading books.   The friends enjoy various tales of pirates, dinosaurs and other fun times that by the end of the actual book they all enjoy reading.

Our kids liked the illustrations in this book much more.  It has real photographs in the window of the house where they’re reading so it offers a different effect.  The books are also real, with the illustrated animals standing on them.

Bunny Loves to Read has a quick pace and enough variety of emotions to let the parent who is reading have fun with it and bring the child along.  However, our kids didn’t enjoy this book too much either and I think it’s because it was just a hare (sic) too long.  Most of our books happen at bedtime and they’ll let us know if they’re losing interest in said book.  We got through Bunny Loves to Read a couple of times and our kids moved onto something else.

The odds on your kids enjoying this book are higher than average, but get it from the library first just to confirm that.  Thus was born, our description of stock or library books, some of which may, or may not be a metaphor.