Amazon.com Review
Oprah Book Club® Selection, December 1997: Little Bill discovers that some of the best treasure cannot be bought or collected. At home on a windy and rainy day, Little Bill is bored. His father has jazz records to listen to, and his brother has a great baseball card collection. Bill wants something special, too--something that he can call his own. But what does he have? His great-grandmother comes to his rescue. She gets Bill to tell her a story, and she laughs and laughs at the tale he tells. Little Bill realizes that he has something special after all: the ability to tell a good story and make people laugh.
Bill Cosby's Little Bill books are engaging and uplifting, entertaining and, at the same time, educational. Each story highlights a certain problem and encourages the use of imagination and creativity to find solutions.
From School Library Journal
Kindergarten-Grade 3. Cosby turns his hand to writing, telling stories about situations that children often face. In The Best Way to Play, Little Bill, the narrator, and his friends get caught up in the excitement and marketing of their favorite TV cartoon, Space Explorers, and desperately want their parents to buy them the expensive video game. They become bored with it quickly, however, and realize that it's more fun to play Space Explorers outside. In The Meanest Thing to Say, Little Bill comes face to face with a bully. The Treasure Hunt takes him on a voyage of self-exploration. It seems to him that everyone in his family has a special quality. After a full day of searching, he discovers that his is "telling stories and making people laugh." These titles feature short chapters, making them appropriate for beginning readers?but they're also short enough to be read aloud. Honeywood's illustrations are bright and eye-catching, and show Little Bill and his friends and family as having distinctive personalities and characteristics. Each book comes with a letter to parents from a child psychiatrist about the subject matter in that book. While the writing is nothing extraordinary, Cosby has a good grasp of the issues and how the world looks through children's eyes. The primarily African-American characters also make these books welcome additions to easy-reader collections.?Dina Sherman, Brooklyn Children's Museum, NY
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
