Don't You Just Love Chocolate Mousse!!! (Chocolate Mousse for Greedy Goose - Julia Donaldson)

Member Name: belfin

Product:	Chocolate Mousse for Greedy Goose - Julia Donaldson
Date:	11/12/06 (141 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: lovely rhymes - fantastic illustrations

Disadvantages: none

***The Author & Illustrator***

As with quite a few of her books, Julia Donaldson has paired up with Nick Sharratt to put together this wonderful rhyming book.

Julia Donaldson is such a popular author that I’m sure most of you out there with young children will have seen one of her books, if not actually own a few yourselves. Her most well known book has to be the Gruffalo but she has also written lots of other fantastic books such as Conjuror Cow, The Snail and the Whale and Wriggle and Roar.


***The Story***

Told in rhyme this book is all about a group of friends, getting together to eat a meal. It starts,

“Where’s the meal? Asks hungry Seal.
It’s coming now, says busy Cow.

As we turn the pages we see that each animal has a question to ask or an answer to give and a variety of foods such as pasta, vegetables and finally the pudding are all brought to the table.

“Chocolate Mousse! Says greedy Goose.
Don’t just grab it, says angry Rabbit.

What follows is a fight between more animals to see who can lick the bowl clean first until,

“It’s all gone, says sad white Swan.

The story ends with,

“Let’s wash up, says helpful Pup.
But lazy Sheep says, No let’s…..”

As we turn over to the last page we see all the animals snuggled up together on a large sofa with a single word,

“…Sleep!”

***The Illustrations***

Nick Sharratt is excellent at producing humorous illustrations to go with stories and this is no exception. He gets the expressions just right on the animals’ faces and it is all done in a bright and colourful manner. The backgrounds are kept simple so a child can focus on these funny drawings.

***My Thoughts***

I am a big fan of this author and illustrator and we have quite a few of these books in our collection. This one is very funny and my son loves it being read to him as he can join in with the comical rhymes.

As well as the fun side to it of course, there is also the message that teamwork and sharing go hand in hand and I feel that this is done in a way that comes across well to a child.

The story itself, is simple and there is only one line of text on each page so a child doesn’t get easily fed up while you are reading long paragraphs. I also love the continuity of the illustrations as it is done to look like they are all sitting at a long table and with each turn of the page you can see a small section of table from the previous one. In one page, which has a monkey and a hen on it, we see a small section of feathers and half a bowl of peas and when we turn the page we see the other half of the bowl along with the tail feathers of the hen. We also see that the small section of feathers from the previous page, belong to a duck. This continues as you go through the book until we reach the end of the table, which can also be seen on the last page beside the sofa.

I love rhyming books as I feel it helps children understand language better in such a fun way that they don’t actually realise that they are learning. I hope I continue to see books such as this for on the shelf for many years to come.

***Price and Availability***

The price on the back of this large paperback is £5.99 but it is available for the cheaper price of £4.49 from Tesco. It is also available in hardback form for £9.99 but is again available at Tesco for only £6.49.


Paperback ISBN No. 140502190X
Hardback ISBN No. 1405021888

Summary: Another Julia Donaldson winner.