Customer Reviews

The Umbrella

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Both my 4 year old daughter and I love this book! The pictures are gorgeous, the unusual animals are beautiful and interesting and the simple story is alot of fun! I enjoy how the story builds up and then brings itself back around to a similar place from which it had begun. I love the frog's spanish text. I didn't think it was confusing at all as one editorial reviewer mentioned above. I am buying another copy as a Christmas present for my 8 year old niece. If your child is interested in animals and forests, as mine is, I'm sure he/she will enjoy this book.

(NOTE: This is my third in a series of reviews about rain forests by children's authors. My point is to show visually how divergent talent can be concerning the same topic--in this case, the rain forest, which needs to be protected and preserved. The other two books are Rain Forest (Kingfisher Voyages) and The Living Rain Forest. These three together would make a great teaching unit.)

Jan Brett is one of my favorite children's author/illustrators. Her work is so imaginative and vivid. "The Umbrella" is certainly no exception. Open to the first two full color pages and look for all the hidden and semi-hidden rain forest animals. You will meet them in the story.

Little Carlos tells his father on the first page he plans to go into the rain forest (cloud forest, he calls it) to spy a jaguar, a monkey, a toucan, a kinkajou, and a tapir. His umbrella is really one he made of broad leaves. His papa's farm is filled with domestic animals: cat, cows, goat, chickens. In a Jan Brett book, one must look at everything, because there is so much to see. The illustrations are lush and green--this is a rain forest!

Now, this is how a Jan Brett book is arranged: A scenario is to the left of the two-page spread and it introduces part of the story. In this case it is a close-up of the umbrella tossed to the ground. To the right is another advance of the story. The big picture shows Carlos about to climb a vine into the trees. The right picture contains a tree frog who jumps into the collecting water in the boat of the upturned umbrella. Here comes a toucan into the umbrella.

Remember the side stories? Carlos is climbing, here comes a kinkajou, who falls into the opened umbrella to join the frog and the toucan. Then a tapir, a butterfly, a quetzal, and, oh no, the monkey, who is always into mischief. Then the jaguar jumps in. The umbrella falls into the stream. All is a balancing act until the tiny hummingbird alights on the handle. That does it! The umbrella overturns and they all all out.

All the animals scatter as Carlos descends, closes the umbrella and returns home. He sets down the umbrella on his porch, froggy, who rode the distance, jumps in, and water drips from the roof into the umbrella. Froggy has his swim after all!

See? Jan Brett creates a story out of the lushness of a rain forest. The story is simple and fun, but full of the colors and animals of their natural habitat. It might be a story but then again, it might be a book of knowledge. Or magic.

Jan Brett captures the reader with a lovely story and her delightful artwork. She never disappoints her readers young and old. I teach second grade and used the book with a rainforest unit and the students loved it

Beautiful book with pictures that really reminded me of Costa Rica. I love reading this book to my two year old son.

My 3 1/2 yr old grandson likes this book. He enjoys hearing about Carlos in the jungle as he climbs the fig tree and he likes to look for Froggy and Toucan in the illustrations of the book. He seems to enjoy this story over and over.

Who cannot love a Jan Brett book? I've always thought her illustrations were fantastic and this book is no exception.

The Umbrella is a wonderful story set in the rainforest. Young Carlos goes off to search for animals in the rainforest. He brings with him his umbrella, which he leaves at the bottom of a fig tree as he begins to climb it.
Unbeknownst (is that a word?) to him, all the animals end up congregating in his umbrella at the bottom of the tree.

It is a great book to read for any rainforest theme. My daughter liked learning and remembering the names of the rainforest animals. I actually bought it for use in my kindergarten classroom and it is a staple. The kids want to hear it over and over again.

While this is not my favorite Jan Brett book, it is a good one!

My son likes the pictures in this book, esp. searching for the animals in the lushly illustrated cloud forest... but the story is really weak (animals pile into an umbrella while the boy looking for them is climbing up a tree seeing nothing) and there's little appealing about the word choice/language. Still, I like that some of the animals are unusual (tapir, kinkajoo, quetzel), my son like them bc he recognizes them from Go Diego.

I love Jan Brett books. This one I bought for a grandchild. He loved all the colorful animals of the rain forest. Even the somewhat older grandkids had to see it.The Umbrella

This is basically The Mitten, but in the rain forest. And instead of just randomly exploring, the boy is looking for animals - the same animals that are all crowding into his umbrella! As in The Mitten, the animals gradually get bigger and bigger until they're packed as tight as they can, and then it's a little teeny animal that ruins the whole thing.

This is a pretty solid addition to your library if you liked The Mitten (Brett's version, that is), or if you want more books set in the rain forest.

However, I found the story a bit lacking (we know our main character can't find any animals because they're all hanging out in his umbrella - but really, there's only ONE quetzal, only ONE kinkajou in the whole forest?) and the dialog somewhat stilted. If you have to choose between this one and The Mitten - or any other Brett work - I'd go with the other one.

Also, some people dislike The Mitten because they perceive the bigger animals as bullying the smaller ones. There's absolutely more of that in this book, and not just implied. (However, that was cut from the board book version of The Mitten, and may not be in the board book version of The Umbrella.) If this sort of thing concerns you, you should absolutely read this book before you buy it.

My son misplaced this book recently. It wasn't fun. We tore apart the house before finding it already tucked in the car for show and tell. The story is so happy with two views happening simultaneously. Our five-year-old loves seeing the clues as to which animal is next.

This is a wonderful book with gorgeous illustrations.