Customer Reviews

The Guinea Pig ABC

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The reviewer who gave this book one star, Jay Babcock, underestimates the intelligence of the average 4 to 5 year old. Certainly 1-3 year olds may not get the concepts in this book ""E" for Empty" with two piggies looking at an empty mailbox. It is the parent's or reader's job to explain the illustration and what "empty" means as a teachable moment. Everything should not be spelled out and spoon fed to kids or they will never learn anything at all. The children that I have seen checking out this book again and again loved it and when they sounded out words, they were so happy to get them right. They were inspired to read further and read other books as well. It is highly unfair of him to suggest that she had no business writing this book.

I found the book to be delightful and wonderfully illustrated and again, the children I have seen reading this book in the library clearly loved it.

My toddler loves this book. At first I worried that the concepts were too advanced for him, but after several reads he got quite a few of them. He asks me to read it to him again and again. I think this book helped him learn his alphabet before his 2nd birthday.

The review giving this book one star is quite a revelation. It's unfortunate the reviewer was unaware that all the words in the book are adjectives - what a brilliant innovation for an ABC book!

Apparently the person who wrote the review is working with very disadvantaged children. Generally young children, even those under three, know words such as 'empty', 'quiet' and 'neat'. The purpose of this book is to help enrich a child's vocabulary, and not repeat the common 'apple, bird, and cat' ABCs. And the wonderful illustrations are as appealing as those in any of the very best children's books.

This alphabet book is excellent to teach younger primary grades their alphabet because instead of simply using adjectives or nouns, the book uses adjectives, prepositions, adverbs and more to describe the guinea pigs. Overall this is a very creative book that kids, parents, and educators will enjoy.

Wonderful book to start Pre-K or Kindergardeners how ABC's fit into making words and sounds. The ending "Y" was on many of the words and by middle the of book my child understood that "Y" can make a "E" sound such as B for Bouncy, or "D" for Dirty,"E" for Empty, or "I" for Itchy.Its illustration was engaging to my child and showed the guinea pigs doing something that defined the word. Delightful book and would buy from this author again.

The words are unique from other ABC books, and the illustrations are darling! One reviewer complained that the words were to conceptual, I argue that if you child is having trouble grasping the meaning of certain words in this book, you now have a great opportunity to teach them. I have a print of the "V" for Vain page on my wall- love it!

My son received this book when he was 3 from his godmother (a children's librarian who found the best stuff for him). He loved it and so did I. The guinea pigs are adorable. Lighten up on how educational it may or may not be! The book is fun. I'm on this site because I want to get a copy for my bilingual German niece (4). (My son is now 22.)

After reading this book about three times to my kindergarten class, they had it memorized. I was able to make flash cards of the adjectives and put them in alphbetical order for lots of fun games. If a child has memorized a book it is easy to get them to follow along and look at the words as they say them. I learned to read this way. I read The Guinea Pig ABC book to my four year old grandson and during his first week of kindergarten he read it to his little classmates. My grandson is now in 7th grade and has always excelled in reading. If you asked him how he learned to read he will tell you about his grandma and the Guinea Pig ABC Book. That person who gave the book one star probably likes the old Dick and Jane books. "Look, look. See funny, funny Jane" is a very boring way to learn to read and it isn't necessary.

Most ABC books are about nouns.
This author decided to be different and write an ABC book about adjectives!

First of all, I have read other books by Kate Duke and I must say that her guinea pigs are cute and I enjoy some of her drawings. While Ms. Duke does a competent job of illustrating her books, she has no business writing them. The Guinea Pig ABC features 1 page illustrations with a word at the bottom and a large letter taking up most of the page. The problems however are that the guinea pigs, in their interactions with the letters, wind up blocking pieces of them. This causes the letters to not stand out as much and the guinea pigs to become the central focus, and not the alphabet. The larger problem however is the selection of words. Many of the words are not in the vocabulary of children learning their alphabet. I have field tested this book with over 100 different children in small groups. It has not been well-received in any setting or by any group of children. Too many of the words deal with abstract concepts that the children simply do not yet have a grasp of. For instance, "E" is the word "empty" - with two guinea pigs looking inside an empty mailbox. 3, 4 and 5 year olds are not going to make the connection. "Q" is the word Quiet; "N" is Neat; "F" is Ferocious! On the rear dust-jacket, Duke says, "the only research I did consisted of staring at Peaches, my little sister's guinea pig"... that is painfully obvious.

Why 1 star?: This book is much too complicated for its target audience. This was Duke's first attempt at children's literature and I do wish she had done some more research. I am appalled that E.P. Dutton would even print this book. The book attempts to teach both the letters and abstract concepts simultaneously instead of picking a definite focus.