Ho Mixed Up Are You? (Mixed Up Fairy Tales - Hilary Robinson)

Member Name: tb4ms

Product:	Mixed Up Fairy Tales - Hilary Robinson
Date:	08/05/07 (134 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Lot's of fun!

Disadvantages: None

This is a great book and the majority of the Year 2 children I teach try to get their little mits on it whenever they have an opportunity to.

This is a book with a difference and is very cleverly done!

~ Style and Format ~

It has 'snippets' of different fairytales and traditional tales on the left side of each double page with additions to the original stories, e.g.

Goldilocks / was bossed around by two horrid stepsisters / and fell asleep for a hundred years before being woken by / Little Red Riding Hood's granny.

The short bits of writing are in 4 segments which I have shown with the /.

The right hand side of the double page has a picture of each character or event directly opposite the section of writing.

The page is then 'cut' in to the 4 different sections so that different pieces of writing or pictures can be moved, enabling the children to make up some very funny versions of their own, e.g.

Goldilocks / was laughed at by the ducks / and was put in a cooking pot to be turned into / a grumpy giant.

I hope you get the idea now. In short, it's a more complex version of the picture books that I had as a child where you could turn different sections over to create different outfits and characters.

- The Characters -

* Goldilocks
* Jack
* Little Red Hiding Hood
* Ali Baba
* The Ugly Duckling
* CInderella
* The 3 Billy Goats Gruff
* Sleeping Beauty
* The Enormous Turnip
* Aladdin
* Snow White
* Puss in Boots

So as you can see there is a host of options available to the children with genies, ogres, swans, princes, giants etc..

- Nick Sharratt & The Illustrations -

Nick Sharratt is an award winning illustrator and he has worked alongside a number of authors of children's books as well as writing his own books.

The illustrations in this book are very simple. Each landscape rectangle is almost like a picture frame, within which he has brilliantly, yet simply drawn each of the characters or objects that are mentioned in the text.

- The author, Hilary Robinson -

She has written a number of children's books as well as writing features on educational matters for a range of newspapers and magazines.

* Mr Spotty's Potty
* How to teach a dragon manners
* Scrapman Stan and his magical mixer fixer
* The Princess's secret letters

- Price -

My paperback was £6.99 ISBN: 0-340-87558-5 but amazon are selling copies from £2.75.
They are only selling boardbooks from the huge cost of £17.49 although I do think the boardbook, if you can find it cheaper, would be worth the investment as my paperback version is becoming a bit raggedy with the amount of usage!

- My Verdict -

This is a brilliant book with lots of reading opportunities for children whilst at the same time lots of fun!
Well worth taking a look at for anyone with 4-7 year olds, the independent readers being able to make up their own hilarious short tales!

Summary: An excellent children's picture book with a difference!