A Family of Creeps! (Mr. Creep the Crook - Allan Ahlberg)

Member Name: sewbizzie

Product:	Mr. Creep the Crook - Allan Ahlberg
Date:	23/10/08 (150 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easy to read and fun book

Disadvantages: None

Mr Creep the Crook is a short story from the Happy Families Collection of books. The front cover of the book is pink with a picture of a crook and the title above this in green lettering and above the title is the Happy Families logo in darker pink rectangles. The back cover of the book is also pink and has a white rectangle in the middle showing small pictures of other books available in the collection.

The book starts by telling us that Mr Creep is a bad man, Mrs Creep is a bad woman and Master and Miss Creep are very bad children. Also their dog, Growler was bad. The creep family spent some o the time living in their secret den and the rest of the time living in jail. One day Mr Creep was sitting in his jail room eating a piece of cake and drinking a cup of tea and he was planning how to get out. He had a plan but when the children and Mrs Creep saw it they decided they wanted to visit places on the way out but Mr Creep said no as his plan was fool proof and that was the one they would use.

A few weeks later Mr Creep and the family followed the plan and they did make it out of the jail. Would his plan be fool proof or would the Creep family be caught and end up back in jail?

This book is very fun and is easy to read. The was it has been written is basic and the words are all found to repeat themselves throughout the book. The words are all in black ink and are a good size, they are all printed on plain white sections of the pages which makes them easy to see and read.

The illustrations are on every page and they do help with the story as it makes it easier to follow what is going on. The pictures also help to keep my 4 year old involved in the book as he likes to be able to see what is happening and not just having to sit and listen.

The book is fairly short and I can read this in about 5 minutes but when my 6 year old reads this himself it does make much longer and he spend around 15 minutes on the book.

The book is part of the Happy Families collection and other titles available include:-

Mr Biff the Boxer
Master Money the Millionaire
Master Bun the Bakers Boy
Mrs Lathers Laundry
Mrs Jolly's Joke Shop
Mr Cosmo the Conjuror


The book has been written by Allan Ahlberg and the illustrations are by Andre Amstutz. The book was published by Puffin and has a retail price on the back cover of £1.95. The books are available from both Amazon and EBay with starting prices as low as 1p. I only paid just over £1 for my copy which is a great price for such a fun book.

I do recommend this and the other books in this collection as they are all great books for new beginners and are great for encouraging independent reading.

Summary: Book desinged especially for new and beginner readers