| Product: |
Mr Wolfs Pancakes - Jan Fearnley |
| Date: |
05/11/07 (170 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: good book with great pictures
Disadvantages: familiar story line
Mr Wolf's Pancakes by Jan Fearnley
Another successful trip to the library and this time I struggled home with 15 different books! Luckily for me a few of these books were paperback instead of the usual hard or board back books that you often get with small children's fiction.
One of the paperback books was in fact this book called Mr Wolf's Pancakes. I initially picked up this book because of the wonderfully bright illustrated front cover, which depicts a cartoon drawing of a wolf holding fresh steaming hot pancakes.
The Book is relatively new and looking inside the first few pages I can see that the book was first published in 1999, which to me isn't that long ago. And Mammoth are the publishers.
The story of the book is pretty simple but loveable at the same time. It starts off by Mr Wolf really fancying some pancakes. He has never made pancakes before so he gets out his large cookbook and finds a recipe. Unfortunately he is not so good at reading so decides to go and ask his neighbour Chicken Licken for help with reading the instructions. Chicken Licken slams the door in the Wolfs face so Mr Wolf gets no help.
He manages to decipher from the recipe what ingredients he will need to make the pancakes and finds that he needs to buy everything, as his cupboards just don't have the right things inside. He thinks it best if he makes a list of all the ingredients so that he doesn't forgets anything. Unfortunately again Mr Wolf is not too hot on writing and decides to ask another neighbour for help with writing down all the ingredients on his shopping list.
He knocks on Wee Willy Winky's door and asks very politely if he would help him to write the shopping list so that he can get on and make his pancakes. Again Mr Wolf gets the door slammed in his face and Wee Willy Winky is rather rude to Mr Wolf and again Mr Wolf gets no help. He manages after a long while to write down everything he will need from the shop but then realises that he needs to sort out the money that he will need to buy all the items from the list. Mr Wolf is no good at all with counting and decides to go next door and ask the gingerbread man for some help. Mr Gingerbread man tells Mr Wolf he is far to busy to bother helping him out and again Mr Wolf gets a front door slammed in his face.
After managing to count out all his money and checking it several times to make sure that it was right Mr Wolf wants to make his way to the shop but realises he needs a basket to carry all the ingredients safely back from the shop in. He decides to ask the one person he knows who has a suitable basket and that is Little Red Riding Hood. He gets told quite clearly to clear off by little red ridding hood so he makes his way to the shop without any basket at all.
Mr Wolf walks to the shop and buys everything he needs from his list and uses the money he has so carefully counted out. He then manages to carry everything he has bought very cautiously home to make his pancakes. On arriving home he remembers that wolves aren't very good at cooking and decides to ask the three little pigs for some help to make his pancakes. He of course gets the same treatment as before and all three little pigs tell him to go away and slam their doors in his face.
Mr Wolf takes himself home and begins to slowly go through the recipe and cook himself some pancakes. He eventually makes a large plate of fresh steaming pancakes all by himself. As the wonderful aroma of the pancakes wafts down Mr Wolf's street all his neighbours get a wonderful sniff of the fresh pancakes and all decide to try their luck in asking Mr Wolf for a taste of his pancakes.
They all go to Mr Wolf's door and very un-politely ask for him to "give us some of your pancakes" and of course Mr Wolf tells his neighbours that not one of them helped him to make the pancakes so why should they try some. They all offer to help now by helping Mr Wolf eat the pancakes. Mr Wolf does the only decent thing and invites them all in.
The neighbours barge their way past Mr Wolf and into his house. When they were all in Mr Wolf follows them through to the kitchen where he proceeds to gobble them all up! After he has eaten every last one of his neighbours he proceeds to eat all his pancakes by himself!
This book is really wonderful and the illustrations are very eye catching and appealing. The story has a sort of moral which is that you should always help your neighbour as you never know if they will eat you up. Or something along those lines.
Every page is full of brightly coloured cartoon pictures with the writing typed over but still easy to read. Jack rally enjoyed me reading this to his and sat quietly through out the whole story. He was really enchanted by the pictures of all the different characters.
I really do rate this book highly considering I borrowed it for free from the library I think it was well worth the journey if you wanted to buy this book the RRP is £4.99pence but I am sure you could get it far cheaper on line.
The story is well written the pictures are well drawn and the characters are well known and fit the story well. The story line is perhaps not the most original as I have now read a fair few that are pretty much based along the same lines. But the book on a whole was very good. I don't think I will buy it but I may well borrow it again from the library at a later date.
4*s for The Wolf's pancakes.
Summary: a nice childrens book
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