I Love My New Toy! (An Elephant and Piggie Book) [Hardcover]

Mo Willems (Author, Illustrator)

Book Description

Age Level: 4 and up | Grade Level: P and up | Series: Elephant and Piggie

Gerald is careful. Piggie is not.
Piggie cannot help smiling. Gerald can.
Gerald worries so that Piggie does not have to.

Gerald and Piggie are best friends.

In I Love My New Toy!, Piggie can't wait to show Gerald her brand new toy.  But will an accidentally broken toy accidentally break a friendship?

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Starred Review. Kindergarten-Grade 2—In classic Willems style, the characters' expressions and body language carry both stories, with the deceptively simple line art saying far more than the slight, though whimsical, texts. When Gerald accidentally breaks Piggie's new toy, he is by turns ashamed, chagrined, and apologetic. Piggie is mad, sad, and finally embarrassed (a squirrel shows them that the "broken toy" is of the "break-and-snap" variety). The pals then decide that playing together is more fun than playing with a toy anyway. In the second title, the two watch a squirrel surprise a friend by jumping out from behind a rock. Mischievous Gerald and Piggie then plan together how to "surprise" one another in the same way. They sit behind opposite sides of a large stone and wait to be surprised. And wait. And wait. And worry. Savvy readers will know exactly what happens when each friend thinks that the other has left. These masterful mini-dramas will delight and amuse easy-reader and picture-book audiences, alike.—Kelly Roth, Bartow County Public Library, Cartersville, GA
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From Booklist

*Starred Review* In this new addition to the Theodor Seuss Geisel Award–winning Elephant and Piggie series, Piggie has a great new toy, although she’s not exactly sure what it does. Elephant thinks that perhaps it’s a throwing toy. And throw it he does, right up in the air, and then it smashes in two pieces. Uh-oh. At first it seems as though there will be a break in the friendship as well as a broken toy. Elephant’s “sorry” is not accepted by Piggie, though they do share a few tears. When Squirrel comes around and spots the toy as one of the “break-and-snap” variety, showing it’s as good as new, the friends soon realize that playing together is more fun than any old toy. This offers plenty of opportunity for new readers to learn useful words like sad and mad, but the charm comes in the way Willems captures the emotions of young children, sometimes with a line of dialogue (“You broke it!”), and sometimes with an artful drawn line that says as much as words. Grades K-2. --Ilene Cooper

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 4 and up
  
• Hardcover: 64 pages
• Publisher: Hyperion Book CH (June 3, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1423109619
• ISBN-13: 978-1423109617
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.8 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #62,461 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #23 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Children's Books > Animals > Elephants > Fiction
  • #40 in Books > Children's Books > Animals > Elephants
  • #65 in Books > Children's Books > Animals > Pigs

More About the Author

A three-time Caldecott Honor winner for Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!, Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale, and Knuffle Bunny Too: A Case of Mistaken Identity, Mo Willems has also won two Geisel Medals for There is a Bird on Your Head! and Are You Ready to Play Outside? And his books are perennial New York Times bestsellers. Before he turned to children's books, Mo was a writer and animator on Sesame Street, where he won six Emmy Awards. Mo lives with his family in Massachusetts.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars great early reader series, June 18, 2008

By 

Scrappy CPA - See all my reviews

This review is from: I Love My New Toy! (An Elephant and Piggie Book) (Hardcover)

My son loves the whole Elephant & Piggie series. In fact, these books are what taught him to read at age 4. They are repetitive and use short, easy words. Plus, they are hilarious. My son wants to read them each night. "I Love My New Toy" was just as funny as the rest of the ones we have. Mo Willems is the best children's author out there, in my opinion. We have all of his books, and they get read repeatedly. The whole family enjoys them when they are read aloud.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 4 1/2* This Little Piggie Got a New Toy, August 6, 2009

By 

M. Allen Greenbaum (California) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: I Love My New Toy! (An Elephant and Piggie Book) (Hardcover)

Mo Willems, the master of simplicity, conveys the gamut of porcine and elephant emotion with eyeball placement, stance, and just a few lines to suggest motion. With those simple elements, Willems has created one of the most memorable series in little kids' books. Each book is a small little gem, enjoyable by both children and adults (although adults will enjoy Willems primarily for his wry sense of humor, and ability to elicit laughter from simple situations, and an economy of language.

Here, Piggie (full of wide-eyed enthusiasm) shows Elephant his new toy, a kind of ball and stick contraption that resembles something you'd make out of tinkertoys. As usual, the problem--not knowing what how to play with the toy--really isn't that big, unless you're an excitable youngster with a new but puzzling toy.

Elephant, without a clue, suggests it might be a flying toy, and hurls it into the air. The toy crash lands and breaks. Piggie looks out at us without speaking; his heartbreak is evident. Elephant is crestfallen, sorry about what he has done. This unhappy state of affairs is turned about by a squirrel, obviously up on his toy trends, who informs them that it's one the new snap-together toys. In other words, it's supposed to break into pieces, because you can snap them right back together again!

They both still seem puzzled, especially elephant. In fact, in a rare departure for Willems, elephant's emotions are a little obscure. I'm not sure if this was intentional ("so, how do you think the elephant feels?") or not, but the lack of clarity lasts a couple pages too long. After surviving this test of trust (elephant is truly sorry, and never leaves his friend's side), Piggie is reassured, and perhaps realizes that while (some toys) may break, a good friendship lasts much longer.

Willems captures all of this in a style that follows Poe's dictum that every element in a story should be there for a reason. Perhaps like no one else working in kids' picture books, Willems speaks directly to small kids, and bring a twinkle of recognition to adults. They're clever, knowing, and extremely funny. By the way, Willems' extraordinary talent has not gone unnoticed, his books have won two Caldecott honors, and his writing for "Sesame Street" earned him six Emmys. He's an all-time favorite, and your young toddler to kindergarten-age kid will love any and all of Willems' work.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars another Elephant and Piggie gem, November 10, 2009

By 

Carrie Dunham-LaGree "nomadreader" (Des Moines, Iowa) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: I Love My New Toy! (An Elephant and Piggie Book) (Hardcover)

I love the Elephant and Piggie books, and despite being hilarious and clever, they don't need to be read in any particular order.

In I Love My New Toy!, Piggie has a new toy. Elephant, of course, wants to play with Piggie's toy. He promptly breaks it. Squirrel pops up to diffuse the situation in his own blissfully ignorant way. Once again, the characters are simple and complex; most importantly, they're nuances but true to their attributes. The focus is humor, and the "lesson" is secondary and tongue-in-cheek. As always, Mo Willems' drawings mimic his story: they're remarkable simple yet nuanced and complex. This book is great, but my favorite E&P tale is still I Will Surprise My Friend!