Read Aloud Thursday :: Tiger Tales Books

Time for another Read Aloud Thursday hosted by Amy at Hope is in the Word.

We've had a lot of children's books land on our door step these past few weeks which we've been spending time with and so I thought I'd share a few new titles that you might also want to keep an eye out for. These are books, pulled from the stack, that we have particularly enjoyed.

A box of the new Tiger Tales books arrived which always produces a certain amount of enthusiasm and excitement. They produce great stuff! I'm more able to identify a Tiger Tales' book on sight and if I ever discover a book published by them, I'm very inclined to pick it up and check it out. This time we opened their box to discover the following:

Don't Worry, Douglas! follows on the Tiger Tails of Hugless Douglas. Both are written and illustrated by David Melling. We liked both books but this new title has something extra special to offer. For starters, in this story Douglas is sporting a new woolly hat from his dad. He wears it out only to have it completely destroyed after it gets caught on a tree. Douglas is worried that his dad will be mad at him but, in the end, he discovers that his father's love is not based on the state of the hat but is a simple but firm fact of life. The reason we like this particular book is that the last page spread contains illustrations of sheep wearing a variety of different hats. We see a sheep wearing a "banana hat", several sporting a "Follow-the-Leader Hat", a "Peek-a-Boo" hat and even, yes, a "potty hat." (This receives snickers every time I read it.) I'm not actually one to go for potty humor and I've not yet allowed one to remain in our house. My boys giggle incessantly every time I read this and they love looking at the page of hats. So long as we read it sporadically and I don't hear potty humor coming out of their mouths at any point, I think this one is a keeper. So far anyway. (It IS cute.)

I only recently read Bookworm1 (age 4 3/4) the traditional Three Billy Goats Gruff story. (It is in the 100 Classic Stories book I mentioned earlier this week.) Three Billy Goats Fluff is a re-telling of the story by Rachael Mortimer (illustrated by Liz Pichon.) The troll in the story has been the main reason I haven't read him the book yet. However, I thought at the age of almost 5 (this month!) I'd go ahead and read him Three Billy Goats Fluff. Not surprisingly, he found the troll the most curious character in the book and also not surprisingly, we've read it several times over.

In this particular tale, the three billy goats are extra fluffy because they eat some kind of marvelous grass on the other side of the bridge. The problem is that they trit-trot across the bridge rather loudly, always managing to wake the troll from sleep. The troll doesn't like to be woken up. (Who does, really?) He emerges from the bridge to yell at the goats.

"I'm a Troll with a very sore head.
Stop trip-trapping over my bed!
When I'm tired and feeling blue,
there's nothing quite like little goat stew!"

Mama goat saves the day by knitting some booties for the goats to wear on their hooves as they cross the bridge and everyone is friends in the end. The troll is green with hair coming out of his ears. If you have a child that is timid about such things and doesn't like being scared (like mine) then you'll want to know that the troll isn't all together scary. In fact, I sort of think he looks a lot like the green aliens in Toy Story ("We have been chosen.")

On the whole, it's a winner.

Lastly, we have enjoyed A Is for Apple and 1 2 3 Count with Me which are part of the Trace-and-Flip Fun series.




In the alphabet book, each page displays a letter that has tracks so that you can trace the shape of it with your finger. There are lines and numbers associated with the track to inform you which line should be drawn first on each letter and an arrow pointing out the direction the line goes. Each letter is also associated with a word and a lift-the-flap picture. Likewise for the number book. These books have been awesome for Bookworm 2 (age 2 1/2) who is currently learning his letters and learning how to count up to 10. Another winning book set from Tiger Tales in my humble opinion.

They also have some new Christmas titles but I'll hold off on talking about those. They are best saved for another day. In the meantime, we're enjoying these.

Thanks, Tiger Tales, for sending copies of these titles our way to check out. Thanks, Amy, for hosting Read Aloud Thursday!

To find out what other people are reading with their kids, visit Hope is in the Word.