Customer Reviews

If You Give a Moose a Muffin Big Book

5 star:		(47)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Researchers constantly find that reading to children is valuable in a variety of ways, not least of which are instilling a love of reading and improved reading skills. With better parent-child bonding from reading, your child will also be more emotionally secure and able to relate better to others. Intellectual performance will expand as well. Spending time together watching television fails as a substitute.

To help other parents apply this advice, as a parent of four I consulted an expert, our youngest child, and asked her to share with me her favorite books that were read to her as a young child. If You Give a Moose a Muffin was one of her picks.

This humorous book has to be one of the most imaginative ever written and illustrated!

The premise starts with a child spotting a moose out the window in the back yard. The child beckons to the moose, gives the moose a muffin, opens the kitchen door, and lets the moose in. Holding the muffin in his teeth, the moose obviously seems to need some jam. The child opens the refrigerator and gets out the mother's homemade blackberry jam. The moose quickly starts eating the muffin, now that it has jam on it. Then another, and another . . . and another until they are all gone. He seems to want you to make some more.

One thing connects to another, and before the book ends the moose will get a sweater, make puppets, create the scenery, put on a puppet show, make a mess, clean up the mess, want some more jam, and still wants some more muffins.

The book works at several levels. First, the idea is simply to be a good hostess or host. That's something that all children need to learn. You should try to please your guest. Even if it is a moose!

Second, there is also an analogy to being a parent, helping a child. So your child can begin to see what it's like to be the caregiver.

Third, how do you accomplish things? Some you buy, some you make, and almost all have consequences. The book helps your child learn to connect the dots.

Fourth, the child and the moose make a terrible mess. No one gets excited, but they do take responsibility to clean up after themselves. Amen!

Fifth, one thing does lead to another. It is easy to get distracted. The circularity of the story helps your child remember what the purpose originally was, and not to get sidetracked.

Sixth, the book introduces ideas of activities you can do with your child. In fact, it's all right to put the book down and start doing those activities . . . or pick a time to do so.

All in all, you get a lot for your time and money.

The illustrations are wonderful in making the moose very human and humorous. The figures are vivid and clear, and are filled with warm, rich colors.

You can take the concept of the book and make up your own stories with your child. Then you could draw illustrations together and do the activities that you pick for the story. You could start with your child's favorite animal and food. If you give your dolphin a cookie, etc. In that way you can stimulate even more bonding and creativity. Have a ball!

Be sure to overcome your stalled thinking that only authors can come up with great stories that you'll both love. I'll bet your child and you can do a wonderful job!

Enjoy!

Bedtime is the favorite time for me and my five year old daughter. Some time ago we discovered If You Give a Mouse a Muffin, and both of us fell in love. It was with great pleasure we found out that Laura Joffe Numeroff and Felicia Bond has more books out in this series, and just like the first one, If You Give a Moose a Muffin has become an all time favorite for us.

The book starts with a little boy giving a muffin to the moose right outside his house. The moose gets the muffin, but comes into the house to get some jam to go with it.And of course the one muffin is not enough, the moose wants one more and one more.And as the story goes on the moose gets more and more fantastic ideases. The drawings that goes with the story are so funny, you just have to stop reading all the time to enjoy them.
And exactly like the first book this story makes an eterniy wheel - in the end the moose see some jam, and of course wants a muffin to go with the jam, and we are right back to the beginning. It is a genious way to write for children, and just as much fun for the grown up reader.

My daughter and I only have the first two books in the series yet, but have the others on top of our wish list.
Read the book, with or without a child, and I can promise you the best reading time :-)

My hope is that someone will translate these books into Norwegian, I would love to give all Norwegian chidren the pleasure of discovering them.

Britt Arnhild Lindland in Norway

As a gift from a family member to our daughter we were introduced to Numeroff. Now we are hooked. We have "If you give a Pig a Pancake" and "If you give a Mouse a Cookie." The illustrations and the stories are wonderful.

Moose/Muffin is our favorite of this "If You Give a (?) a (?)" series of books, but the other two, Mouse/Cookie and Pig/Pancake, are just as good jumping-off points for clever stories of wandering attention, imagination, curiosity, and the sheer joy of play.

From an adult-critique standpoint, I think Laura Joffe Numeroff's story in this one was the most clever, scene to scene. All the shifts in focus make perfect sense, if you view the moose as personified the moment the kid tosses him the muffin, and never have too large a shift in the scope of the action. It's absurdly funny to have an animal the size of a moose at play like a child in the house.

My favorite illustration is of the moose and the kid -- probably a boy but not altogether clear, so she's a girl for my daughters -- painting the scenery for the puppet show. (Confused? Buy it and read it.) Felicia Bond is very gifted in conveying body language and movement in her characters, and her complex cartoon drawings are delightful all around.

Now this may seem like an obvious point, but a real moose is a very dangerous animal, so parents must instruct their very literal-minded small children that real wild animals are dangerous, and that stories like this are funny pretend stories -- can you say "metaphor" sweetie? You can imagine a friendly moose, but never go up to a real one. There are thousands of kids' stories with personified animals, so this is not a new thought to most adults, but sometimes it's hard for us to remember that *everything* is new to small children.

Our daughters enjoy all three, though I haven't seen Mouse/Cookie surface for a while, so I'll have to dig it out and read it to the 20-month-old. She loves Pig/Pancake and this one. Our older daughter (4.5) treasured all three beginning at her sister's age, and now uses them to really look at and read the words that she already knew by heart.

These are great books. Enjoy with them!

Six years after their classic 'If You Give a Mouse a Cookie', Numeroff and Bond were back with an equally compelling tale of generosity unrewarded. Because of course one thing leads to another -- each seemingly logical, each somehow more outrageous -- until once again the accommodating child is left exhausted.

The illustrations are wonderful, particularly the moose donning a sweater to fight off the chill. Your children will howl with delight.

The kids and I just love the Numeroff books, and "Moose" in particular. It shows cause and effect, however absurd, and is full of activities for rainy or snowy days. The text and pictures have given us great ideas--sock puppets, making scenery, working in the garden, making jam, and cleaning up afterward. Highly recommended for encouraging young imaginations!

I know that most people see this as a children's book but I consider it a very pointed management book. In our customer/employee/employer/citizen/other focused world, this little book shows the extent that things can reach. In its delightful way, it challenges a person to determine just to how far they should go to please others.

I read this book with each of my new employees and other managers around me. People now preface requests with "I need a muffin...".

Thanks to Laura.

In this book theres a moose that smells a muffin from a nearby house. He gets into the house and trys to get a muffin. The kid gives him a muffin and the moose keeps asking for more and more things to go with it. After the moose has had enough the whole house is a mess.

I would recommend this book to anyone of any age. This book is suprising and interesting.

This book teaches you not to give a moose a muffin unless you know hes not going to want anything to go with it.

If you give a moose a muffin...one thing can lead to another and you just never know what you're in for! This a wonderful book with bright, colorful illustrations filled with humorous situations that stem from that first kind act of hospitality between a little boy and a visiting moose. Kids will love the momentum that keeps building as the friendly moose goes from muffin to mayhem while the boy's unsuspecting mom is outside quietly working in the yard. Laura Joffe Numeroff has written other books of this type that are very entertaining, too, but this one is my favorite, by far. It encourages generosity and co-operation in a mad-cap way. The big, gangly moose is so funny that the kids are sure to love him and you will be glad to read this book over and over again.

My three year old loves the audio cassette, especially the first song--he acts it out. Unfortunately, he hates the second and last song--the rap song so I have to quickly stop the tape before he gets upset.