Customer Reviews

Higher! Higher!

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Do you remember the excitement of being a kid on a swing set and screaming as loudly as you could to be sent higher? You were but a passenger on that crazy bus and the sky was the limit. For the little girl in this book, the sky is only the very beginning of her amazing journey upward.

Each push from her dad brings this little pig-tailed cutie to new dizzying heights. First she can see over the bushes, then over the rooftops. A few more pushes and she can see the tops of mountains, a passing airplane and how Earth appears from above. Just when you think she couldn't swing any higher, she meets a surprising new friend (no spoilers here!) before beginning her descent back to Dad.

This book is short on words, but not on emotion. The excitement is clearly evident on the little girl's face as she swings further into the sky. The first seven pages only reiterate the title "Higher! Higher!" and it's up to the reader to inject the enthusiasm. Given the illustrations of her swing progress, that's a pretty easy task.

I love that Leslie can take a everyday, mundane activity and bring to light the type of imaginative thinking that kids are capable of. The swing set might be restricted to her own backyard, but this little girl's imagination knows no bounds.

The author paragraph on the back of the dust jacket cracks me up: Leslie Patricelli lives in the mountain town of Ketchum, Idaho, with her musician husband, three inspiring children, one fat cat, one skinny cat, two fast rabbits, and a legion of well-trained sea monkeys. If that's a peep at Leslie Patricelli's sense of humor, sign me up for all her books. And I'm relieved to hear her sea-monkeys are well trained - that's the mark of a good author.

I bought this book because my daughter loves to swing high in the playground and I encourage her to do so. The story is about a little girl who wants to go higher than a giraffe, a building, and so forth. My daughter enjoys the book tremendously and even talks about it when we are at the playground...if a book has stimulated her mind, that's about all I can ask for.

My daughter (age 4) loves books. Of our embarrassingly large collection of children's books, "Higher! Higher!" has bubbled to the top of the stack next to the bed. Like the other children's books that I'd consider great, "Higher! Higher!" doesn't rely on a complex story arc to tell its story. In fact, in this case, the author hardly relies on words at all to tell her story. It is precisely this lack of words--combined with whimsical (yet also sparse) artwork--that makes the book so compelling (dare I say "addictive"?) to kids. This book is a favorite because my daughter loves to linger on each page, discussing the possibilities that each picture holds. It is definitely not a book that just gets read to a child: there is ample room on each page for creativity to blossom, and we often spend more time reading this book than reading books with more pages. I am certain it will be the first book my daughter reads to herself (and let's be honest here: once she learned to recognize the words "higher" and "hi", she was reading the book to me).
It's a fun book, a silly book, a beautiful book, and I highly recommend it.

It makes me sad to see the reviews here of parents complaining that the book has repetitive and simple language, because it indicates that those parents don't realize how fun it is to talk to kids about the pictures in books!

My daughter and I enjoy talking about many things in this book, like the giraffe who probably lives in a zoo near the swingset, the little boy who loses his balloon from the rooftop (and the mountain climber catches it), whether dogs really fly in jet planes, how funny it is to send a monkey into space in a rocket, and what the alien's planet and parent might look like. Plus, the simple language means that my 2-year-old has easily memorized the text and "reads" this book all by herself. We love it!

Higher! Higher! is a uniquely colorful and artistic book about a girl who loves to swing higher and higher on her swing set. The little girl tells her Daddy "Higher!" and she keeps going higher and higher in the air.

Along the way, the little girl sees a mountain climber, a rocket ship, and even greets an alien! Didn't we all want to take such a spectacular ride as children?

While looking through the book the first time, I noticed that the book had extremely bright, vivid colors and fun look to it, which is unlike other children's books I've seen. Upon further inspection, I realized that the book is entirely illustrated using acrylic paint on canvas! While (without a doubt) many children's books are artistically illustrated Higher! Higher! has something really special. I would proudly display any of the original illustrations from it in our entrance way. This is true art.

I would recommend this book for any child age 2 to age 7. Any child who likes to swing will enjoy this book. The repetitive wording will help to instill confidence in the newest readers.

Reviewed by Elaine Russo for Book Boo ([...])

I have a two-year-old daughter who LOVES to swing. She also LOVES this book. I think that she can relate to the little girl on the swing who wants to go "Higher!, Higher!", all the way up to the clouds... all the way up to outer space! This book takes you on an imaginative trip that makes the impossible possible. I would not be surprised if my little swing-enamored girl is now imagining her own encounters with extra-terrestrial children every time she is on a swing. My daugher had this entire book memorized after about three readings and she now reads the book to me with a huge smile on her face.

This book is not what I was expecting. There are only about ten words in the whole book. It still serves as a good story-building device if you don't mind making up a scenario to go with the pictures.

This book does a great job of capturing the fun a toddler has on the swings. Makes for good conversation about your last trip to the playground when you're home - or conversation about reading books while you're at the playground.

My son is completely enamored with it.

My daughter and I love this book, because it is beautifully illustrated and makes what we do almost every day - swinging at the playground - an exciting adventure.

While it is indeed true that the word "higher" is repeated many times, I feel that if you ask your child questions and explore the illustrations by pointing out different objects, you won't be bored. You don't have to stick to the written text!

My daughter received this book as a gift at 6 months old and I thought it looked a little "simple and boring". I couldn't have been more wrong! At about 8 months old this became her very favorite book, and at 1 year of age, it remains her favorite. She learned to wave hi / bye and do a high five with encouragement from myself and my husband along with the exciting illustrations. She flips the pages so fast to get to that part, because it just cracks her up so much! Now she can point and identify all the animals and objects in the book and it holds her attention for a very long time. We could read this book over and over and she doesn't get squirmy. Now THAT is a miracle for our non-stop little toddler!