1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Disappointed, July 29, 2010
This review is from: Super Grover to the Rescue! (Sesame Street) (Finger Puppet Books) (Hardcover)
My almost 14 month old daughter loves, loves, loves Grover. He's not only her favorite Sesame Street character, but also her favorite pal in general. Where she goes, her Grover doll goes. My daughter also LOVES books, and finger puppet books in particular. So, I ordered this book with high hopes. There are not many Sesame Street books featuring Grover these days, as Elmo seems to be all the rage.
But, alas, we are disappointed. The author here tried to create a story in which Super Grover is trying to find a lost kitty, but ends up stuck in a tree-- admittedly, a cute story line. But the pages don't do it justice; in fact, they don't even make sense. Suddenly, Grover is in a lake and "forgot that not all kitties like to swim." (The humor is lost on children this age.) Then, suddenly, and without transition, he's apparently on a farm, looking for kitties in a pile of hay, and then, suddenly, and again with no transition, he is looking for a kitty in the midst of a bunch of monkeys, and then, all of a sudden, he is stuck in a tree. There are no explanations for where Grover might be that there would be both bales of hay and monkeys around. If Grover was looking for a lost kitty on a farm, the hay would make sense. Then, he could look in the barn, or behind the pig pen. If Grover was looking for the lost kitty at the zoo, or in the jungle, the monkey reference might make sense. The lack of transition is just plain weird.
In the end, we see Grover stuck in a tree. But there is not a transition sentence, like, "Oh, my, there is a tree! Sometimes kitties like to climb trees. I, Grover am going to climb the tree." We just suddenly find Grover stuck in a tree. Kids would not even understand WHY Grover might be in a tree. Or how he got there.
The book is so strange and disjointed, I have to wonder if the person who wrote it has ever written ANYTHING, let alone a children's book. And, the funny thing, is, board books don't even need a story line. Most board books don't really have one; they often just describe something-- different kinds of animals, places a baby is looking for something, items of different colors, etc. The only requirement for board book language is that the child be able to understand, to some extent, the words, and that the pages make sense and go together. This book fails on both accounts.
I gave the book 3 stars because my daughter likes the Elmo puppet, and tries to kiss him, and because the book is so darn cute on the outside. But, the book doesn't seem to hold my daughter's attention as well as other finger puppet and board books. While none of the finger puppet books we have are *great* in terms of their language, my daughter prefers the animal finger puppet series that includes books like
Little Puppy Finger Puppet Book (Finger Puppet Brd Bks) and
Little Bunny: Finger Puppet Book (Finger Puppet Brd Bks) to this book.
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