Biff v's Bop! (Mr Biff the Boxer - Allan Ahlberg)

Member Name: sewbizzie

Product:	Mr Biff the Boxer - Allan Ahlberg
Date:	15/10/08 (154 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good beginner book

Disadvantages: None

Mr Biff the Boxer is a good story which belong to the Happy Families collection of books. The cover of the book is yellow with a picture of two men boxing and the title above this in red lettering. At the top of the cover is the familiar Happy Families name in small blue rectangles. The back cover of the book is also yellow and has small pictures showing other titles available in the collection.

The story starts by telling us that there once was a man called Mr Bop, he was a boxer and the toughest man in town. There was also another boxer in the town called Mr Biff. Mr Biff was not too fit as he ate too many cream cakes and drank too much beer. He liked nothing more than sitting in his cosy chair in front of his fire reading the newspaper.

One day a notice appeared in the town which said there was going to be a charity boxing match between Mr Biff and Mr Bop. Mr Biff told his wife about the boxing match and said he was worried as Mr Bop was the toughest man in town. Mrs Biff told the children about the fight and they said that their Dad would be sire to won as he would biff Mr Bop. Mrs Biff said that Mr Biff was not very fit and so the children decided that they would be his trainers and toughen him up.

Would the children be able to toughen Mr Biff up get him reading and fit enough for his fight against Mr Bop and who would be the champion?

This is a really good book for children who are just starting to read on their own. The words are all nice and simple and in a nice good size so they are easy to read. The book has some nice colourful pictures on all the pages which help to tell the story and therefore help with the reading of the words.

The book is only short and can be read by myself in under 5 minutes but when my eldest reads this on his own it does take much longer so we only get him to read a few pages at a time as some of the pages do have quite a lot of words on them.

My 4 year old son also enjoys listening to this book and it is just the right length for him to sit and listen to the whole book without loosing interest and wanting to do something else instead.

The book has been written by Allan and Janet Ahlberg and was published by Penguin. There are several other books available in the Happy Families collection, a few of the other titles include:-

Miss Dose the Doctors Daughter
Miss Jump the Jockey
Mrs Wobble the Waitress
Mr and Mrs Hay the Horse

This book does have a retail price on the back cover of £3.25 but these books are available on EBay for much cheaper. I picked this book up for £1.20.

I do recommend this and the other books in the collection to all children who are new readers as they are very nice and simple books for children to read independently.

Summary: A good book in the Happy Families collection