Customer Reviews

Simply Delicious!

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

 

 

If having your 5 year old request that you read a book again and again until he knows the story by heart is your definition of a good children's book, then this is the book for you. The story is simply about a father who buys an ice cream cone for his son and has to get home before it melts. There is a short-cut through the jungle. Along the bumpy path, the father has to protect the "simply delicious" ice cream from a number of animals. The play on words and the father's attempts to protect his precious cone are extremely funny. The pictures add to the enjoyment. My 5 year old son asked me to read the story so many times that he memorized it. A great book to enjoy with your children. The title says it all.

The story is pretty simple: Mr. Minky rides his bike down a jungle path to get an icecream cone home for his boy before it melts. The story gets its charm from Mahy's trademark word play -- double dip chocolate chip with cherry etc etc. This book rhythmically sounds a bit like Dr. Seuss. Kids will love the animals that all want the icecream cone, but the illustrations aren't ever going to win a Caldecott award. The butterflies look quite elephantine, and Mr. Minkey's pie and pudding looks more like mashed lentils with green peas. So if you have a child who loves animals and the sound of words, this may be a good book. If your kids are looking for arresting pictures, they'll be turning the page on you before you can finish reading it.

Madonna, who now has read and written children books said it best when she said, "I read a lot of children books and really they're about nothing. They teach children to think little and be pretty, and they rarely teach a moral lesson." This book is in the former category. It's a candy coated treatment of the world, and quite unengaging and limited in both scope and content. Have your children read Grimm's fairytales or else Aesop's Fables. At least in those pages they will learn something of value. It certainly beats this brain dead literature.