£1 a Word (or thereabouts) (My Mum Is Fantastic - Nick Butterworth)

Member Name: DavyMichelle

Product:	My Mum Is Fantastic - Nick Butterworth
Date:	14/08/09 (40 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Nice Concept, Good Illustrations

Disadvantages: Very Expensive

My Mum Is Fantastic by Nick Butterworth retails for £4.99 but is available from Amazon for £4.49. That's still a bit extortionate truth be told, but if you can afford to pay a premium for each and every average bedtime story then you might be interested in this. Otherwise, look out for it secondhand or at your local library!

The book tells a sweet little story all about why the narrator's Mum is fantastic. The first page reads "My Mum is fantastic." Then over the page we read "She's a brilliant artist..." and see Mum painting a lovely cat picture on the accompanying page. Each new page tells us why Mum is so fantastic and shows us a picture that demonstrates this wonderful talent.

The story is essentially a sweet idea, it's designed to encourage kids to admire their parents and view them in a positive light. The pictures are bright and colourful, and the people are all warm and smiling on every page. I think children between three and five years will really enjoy looking at this book and hearing the story, but any younger and they won't understand the incomplete sentences, and any older and they'll think this is too uncool for school.

The text is large print so that in theory, a child could read it themselves. But there are only a few words per page, which suits a younger reader, yet those words are all quite long and complex making them only really suitable for the older reader.

This is basically a sweet picture book, that doesn't serve any other real purpose than as a bedtime story. It's very short and over in just a couple of minutes, so for the price I really can't recommend that you pay the full retail price for this. It's a nice book to have if you spot it cheaply or manage to borrow a copy though.

Summary: Recommended Cheaply