Customer Reviews

Bob Saves the Porcupines (Bob the Builder (8x8))

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The story is nice and my son loves to listen to it. But Bob is not saving porcupines. He is saving hedgehogs. This story was probably "translated" from British English. In England they have hedgehogs but they are not native in the United States. We do have porcupines but they are a lot bigger and do not look the same. When I read the story to my son I always replace porcupines with hedgehogs and I showed him pictures of hedgehogs. I think it would have been better to keep the right name for the animal and then maybe adding a page to teach children and parents just a little about hedgehogs.
Here are a few interesting facts about porcupines and hedgehogs.
While a hedgehog has about 7,000 one-inch quills visible all over his back and head, a porcupine carries about 30,000 two-inch quills concealed under a thick coat of fur on his rump and tail. (Hedgehogs don't really have much of a tail.)
Hedgehogs protect themselves by rolling up into a ball and their quills simply create an impenetrable barrier. Porcupines arch their backs, making the quills stand straight up. They also thrash their armored tails back and forth to hit an attacker.
Porcupines don't hibernate like hedgehogs.
A large porcupine weighs in at a hefty 15 pounds, almost four times as heavy as an average, pointy-snouted hedgehog. A funny thing about porcupines is that they have four toes on their front feet and five toes on their back feet!

This is a very cute book. Bob and the team are busy building a road when Roley almost smooshes a family of porcupines crossing the road. Bob stops him just in time and has to sit down and figure out what to do to keep them safe. Wendy watches them back in the yard while Bob comes up and builds his plan. He makes a little tunnel for them under the road so that they can pass over safely. Wendy brings them back and they adapt very easily to the tunnel built just for them.

We really like this book in our house and I particularly like it because it teaches kids how to respect animals and their habitats. Bob goes out of his way to help them and it just provides a nice way to remind kids to respect animals, especially wild ones, and to help them when needed. Highly recommend!

My son loves construction equipment. I love stories that teach important life lessons. This book does both! Great choice for parents who want their car/truck loving sons to learn more than just what a front end loader is used for :-)

My son is a almost 2 and a Bob the Builder fan. He loves this book! I enjoy the cute story, too. Thanks.