Let your hand tell the story! (Wendy the Wide Mouthed Frog - Sam Lloyd)

Member Name: jo1976

Product:	Wendy the Wide Mouthed Frog - Sam Lloyd
Date:	01/02/09 (134 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Novel design featuring a built in hand puppet to tell the story

Disadvantages: Didn't capture my son's imagination in the long-run, pages can get caught on the puppet

'Wendy the Wide-Mouthed Frog' is a children's book written by Sam Lloyd, author of 'Calm Down, Boris' and 'You're Not So Scary, Sid' amongst others. What all of these books have in common is a hand-puppet built in to the centre of the book, which forms the basis of the story.

In this particular story, the star is Wendy a wide-mouthed frog. All that is required to bring Wendy to life is for the reader to pop their hand into the puppet and mimick Wendy's mouth movements. I haven't actually read any of the other books in the series so this was still quite a novelty for me to read and my six year old son thought so too.

I first came across this book when it was read at the 'Baby Bounce & Rhyme' group that I go to with my eighteen month old. The sessions always start off with a story and when Wendy was read out, complete with hand puppet actions and the obligatory silly voices, it was the first time that I had seen all the children sit still throughout the whole story. The group includes ages from newborn babies right through to pre-schoolers up to about three years old and usually a few of the older ones have wandered off half-way through a story to squabble amongst themselves. This time, every single pair of eyes was glued to the story and the older ones went up at the end to have a go at operating Wendy themselves!

I knew that I'd have to take this one home and luckily got to the front of the queue and managed to bag it. As I expected, the design of the book and it's bright colours and funny story made this an instant hit with my oldest (although I like to think that my funny voices had something to do with the book's success too!) The story itself is quite short, containing only 12 pages of actual story. It is quite comical and it's a story with a bit of a moral at the end too as the rather arrogant and over-bearing frog is taught a lesson in true children's story tradition and she gets her come-uppance when she meets Sid the Squid! The only criticism I would make about the design of the book is that it can be a little difficult to turn the pages over because of the puppet Wendy in the middle. A few times I've actually accidentally missed out some pages because the board pages have got caught on the puppet.

Despite the novelty aspect of the story, it hasn't managed to capture my son's attention in the long run. Usually, when we find a book he enjoys, I have to renew it a few times before he reluctantly agrees to send it back to the library or I end up buying our own copy - I am a real sucker for a good children's story! This time, after reading it for a few nights on the trot, he's moved on to another story already and I don't find it has enough about the story to hold his attention, beyond the initial novelty value of the built in hand puppet.

I think I'll probably look out for other Sam Lloyd books in the same format from the library but won't be rushing out to buy a copy of this particular book. Maybe it might be more of a long-lasting success with younger children, around three or four years, as the length of the book and the language used would probably be about right for that age group. (My eighteen month old does enjoy the puppet and the bright colours though.)

If you did want to pick up your own copy, there are copies available on Amazon for around £5 currently.

Summary: A novel read