My daughter recently added Peppa Pig to her repertoir of TV programmes she'll watch (I was getting a bit bored of just Fireman Sam and Postman Pat SDS!). When we were in a local garden centre, she saw a display of Peppa Pig books and started reading this one. As she had been a good girl that day, and I feel books are a vital part of her learning, I decided to buy it for her.

---About Peppa Pig:
Peppa Pig is a little pig who together with her baby brother George, Mummy Pig, Daddy Pig and all her friends have lots of fun and learn new things. Each episode on TV is about 5 minutes long as is perfect for my little girl who is 22 months. There is also a large range of merchandise that can be bought alongside it.

---About the book:
Peppa's First Pet is a Ladybird book based on the episode of the TV show of the same name. The book is a board book and is a smallish square with a picture of George and Peppa holding her fish in a bowl. The Peppa Pig logo is in the top left corner whilst the name of the book is written in yellow on the right. The characters are shiny so they are smooth when you run your hand over them. The spine of the book has a number 5 on it so there are more books in the series. The back of the book tells you the synopsis for the book and also the other books in the series.

The book tells the story of Peppa's pet fish called Goldie who won't eat her food one morning and looks unhappy. Mummy Pig decides they should take her to the vet, Dr Hamster, but as Daddy Pig has the car, they have to all go on the bus. Whilst on the bus, they meet several other characters including Mr Bull with his tuba (although I'm still not convinced it is a tuba...) and Madame Gazelle who thinks they should sing a song to cheer Goldie up. Once they reach the vets, Goldie seems to have got better which she suggests is a result of them taking her on the bus. They go home again on the bus and find all the characters there again and sing another song about the fish swimming round the bowl.

---My findings:
As my daughter chose this book, I was confident that she would enjoy it and was luckily proven right. She carried it all the way back to the car and then spent the drive home trying to read it. When we got home, I read her the story which was very close to the TV episode and includes pictures from the episode. The book is very bright and colourful with each page having a differnt colour background. The text is all on the left hand page with a large picture on the right. The pictures are encased in a circular line that is a darker colour than the background. The pictures are quite simple and have lots of items in them that are recognisable so my daughter can point things out and learn the names of things shown in the pictures.

The writing on the pages is quite easy to read but is done in wavy lines to make it more intersting. There is too much information on the pages for a young person to read, but the words are easy to understand when they are read so this is a good book to read together with your child. My daughter also really enjoys it because it has the song 'The Wheels On The Bus' which my daughter loves as a song so we have to sing that a lot while we're reading the book. Another nice feature of the book is the pictures under the writing which show the progress of the book as Goldie's progress of jumping out of one bowl and into another.

---And finally:
I have been really pleased with this book and it has kept my daughter amused for some time now. She keeps going back to the book and asking me to read 'the pig' to her and she enjoys looking at the pictures and pointing out the characters she recognises. The book costs £4.99 which seems to be average for this type of book now so is worth the price for the joy it has given her.