The Big Book Adventure

You’ll nev­er guess
Where I have been
Or who I met
Or what I’ve seen.
Shall I tell you?

A pig and a striped-tail fox each begin with that refrain, lead­ing the oth­er one through an excit­ing rev­e­la­tion of the books they’ve just read. They become a part of the sto­ry they’re telling, just as one does when one falls in love with a book.

The illus­tra­tions con­vey how excit­ed the pig and the fox are to share the sto­ries. Each dou­ble-page spread is quite dif­fer­ent in style, con­vey­ing how dif­fer­ent the sto­ries are, rang­ing from Red Rid­ing Hood, The Three Lit­tle Pigs, Trea­sure Island, a com­ic book, a book about mer­maids, and more. So many choices!

When both read­ers have shared, they agree to lend each oth­er their books … because one of the great­est plea­sures of read­ing is shar­ing the sto­ry with oth­er readers.

The Big Book Adven­ture is a win­some intro­duc­tion of sum­ma­riz­ing a book (in words or in pic­tures) for young read­ers. It mod­els shar­ing ideas about what you’ve just read in a way that inter­ests oth­ers in read­ing the book. What a great way to kick off a book club meet­ing by start­ing with a read­ing of this book and chant­i­ng the refrain.

The front end­pa­pers show book club mem­ber­ship cards (a craft idea!).

You’ll enjoy shar­ing this charm­ing idea-spark­ing book with read­ers at the library, in your class­room, as well as in your home. And if it leads you to read­ing the clas­sic books referred to, that’s a win-win.

The Big Book Adventure
writ­ten by Emi­ly Ford
illus­trat­ed by Tim Warnes
Sil­ver Dol­phin Books, 2018
ISBN 978−1−68412−378−0