Mog and Fog (Picture Puffin: Mog in the Fog - Helen Nicoll)

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Product:	Picture Puffin: Mog in the Fog - Helen Nicoll
Date:	05/01/07 (89 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Popular characters

Disadvantages: None

The Meg and Mog books by Helen Nicoll is a very popular series with young children.

- Who is Mog? -

Mog is Meg the witch's stripy black and white cat. Like Meg, Mog is very skinny and a looks a tad under-nourished. She has spiky hair, black eyes and bright yellow centres.

Meg is a witch with a typically hooked nose. She dresses in black, rides on a broom and has a cauldron to mix her potions and spells in, not always however with great success as they often tend to go a bit wrong!

Meg and Mog are often joined in the books by their friend, Owl.

- The story -

In order to fulfil Mog's desire to climb to the top of the highest mountain, Meg and Mog set off on the broomstick.

After a rather painful looking landing, they meet a Sherpa and his Yak who agree to lead the way. They climb higher and higher, crossing preacrious looking torrents and then rest for the night in a cave.

The following morning they awake to bright sunshine and some large prints in the snow. Fog descends and the four intrepid

- Illustrations / Illustrator -

Jan Pienkowski was born in Warsaw in 1936 and eventually came to England just after WW2.
Jan has illustrated for a number of authors and was a pioneer of the modern pop-up books for children.

He has collaborated with Helen Nicoll on all of the Meg and Mog books and has his own website at www.janpienkowski.com

In true Meg and Mog fashion, Jan uses very rich, vibrant colours as backgrounds which really appeal to children. There are more white backgrounds in this book than others in the same series due to the 'setting' of the story, let's face it what other colour could you choose to depict snow?!

Another appealing aspect of the drawings is their simplicity, easy enough for children to re-create their own versions of Meg, Mog and Owl.

- Style and Format -

What I particularly like is the simple font that is used, i.e. there are no squiggly or looping letters which is great for emergent readers to decipher.

The text font and size also changes to show loudness and so on, e.g. when Meg spots the Yeti her sheer terror and shock is screeched out with a huge "EEEK!!" in large yellow capital letters.

A lot of the text is also in speech bubbles and there are also some thinking bubbles, e.g. when Mog is faced with some food for tea from the Sherpa the thought bubble shows that she is thinking "Yuk!"

The text and illustrations work hand in hand with each other in this book e.g. when they climb to the top of the mountain, the text is in vertical format as opposed to the standard horizontal positioning of text in books.

- Educational Values -

* Perhaps the most important is the fun aspect which encourages a love of books with children, which is all so important.
* A lot of vocabulary is introduced to children in this book, e.g. yeti,sherpa, iceaxe, compass etc..
* Some discussion can take place as to what the highest mountain in the world is called
* It's also an opportunity to look at speech and thought bubbles.

- Meg and Mog Series -

There are some audio book cassettes for some of the books in the series.

Meg and Mog had an animated tv show and volumes 1 and 2 can be bought from amazon on DVD and VHS.

There is also a Meg and Mog copy colouring book full of pictures from their TV adventures.

Following the huge success of the first book 'Meg and Mog', Helen Nicoll and Jan Pienkowski have collaborated on a number of other Meg and Mog books:
* Meg's eggs
* Meg at sea
* Meg's car
* Meg's castle
* Meg's veg
* Mog's mumps
* Mog at the zoo
* Owl at school

David Wood has written a professional stage play 'The Meg and Mog Show' based on the characters in the series. He has written a series of 4 short plays for children to read and act out. The book includes simple staging and costumes.

- Price -
My Picture Puffin paperback cost £4.99 but amazon are selling them for just over £1 but watch out for P&P charges!

- My Verdict -

This is a popular book with young children from about 3 years upwards, not my favourite from the series of Meg and Mog books but any fan of theirs won't be disappointed. Well worth a trip to the library.

Summary: Great illustrations, an enjoyable children's picture book