This book isn't pants! (Aliens Love Underpants - Claire Freedman)

Member Name: i_am_joy

Product:	Aliens Love Underpants - Claire Freedman
Date:	14/06/08 (89 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Lovely illustrations, great rhyming text, appeals to children and gets them interested in reading.

Disadvantages: -------------

Aliens Love Underpants is a strange one. I bought it a month or so back for my 5 year old niece and everyone loves it, including my own 12 month old granddaughter who giggles at the pictures and likes the rhythm of the poems.

The story is basically that there are no underpants in space and because aliens have such a fascination with this garment they travel all the way to earth just to play with and steal our pants! What makes Aliens Love Underpants so interesting though is the fact that this book is written in a lovely rhyming way that instantly captured my nieces attention and I eventually caught my nine year old granddaughter flicking through it and saying the rhymes aloud - although she'd never admit to finding a book like this funny!

The illustrations in Aliens Love Underpants are fantastic, they are very bright and fun to look at. Ben Cort is the illustrator and I think it is his work that makes the book. The aliens all look friendly and fun to know, watching them play with the underpants and put on huge Y-fronts is very comical and I enjoyed looking at the pictures in this book. Because Aliens Love Underpants is aimed at young children I think it's very important that the pictures are enough to hold their attention because there isn't always going to be an adult around to help them read the words, and these illustrations definitely do that because the aliens look like they are having so much fun with all the pants on Earth that I couldn't help but smile as I flicked through the pages.

The text of the book is great too and perfect for the age range this book is meant for. Younger children may struggle, but as there is only a line or two of text on each page you'll see children picking up the words as time goes by and after you've read the book to them a few times they'll be able to say aloud their favourite parts of the book - whether it's learned parrot fashion or not, this is still a definite milestone in any childs education. I think the fact that the words are in rhyme form helps struggling readers too because they author has used a brilliant rhythm in Aliens Love Underpants and children can bounce along to the words and even sing them for a more song-like story.

There is no actual plot in this book, other than the aliens coming to earth and stealing all our pants, so I think the age range that this story will appeal to is slightly limited. The story revolves around the fun the aliens are having with our pants and this is brilliant for little kids around the 5 year mark, but any older and children will probably want more action and plot line to a story. My neice loves this book and laughs her socks off everytime we get it out, my older granddaughter has read the book once and even though she enjoyed it I don't think she'd want to re-read it, I found it hillarious in an adult-laughing-at-rubbish way and my son in law didn't see the attraction of a book about pants so he refused to even glance inside the cover!

Aliens Love Underpants is available in paperback only and this costs under £3 from most book shops. Definitely a bargain if you have a child from the age of 3 to 6 because they will absolutely adore this book.


This review has also been posted on mumsnet under my same username.

Summary: Everyone I know has laughed and smiled at Aliens Love Underpants.