At least they're toilet trained.
Whenever books start down the path of 'it is better to be this type of person than this other type of person,' which this book is very clearly doing, they risk alienating a great deal of people, children and adults alike. I don't like my books to be this judgmental.
Dads who act like children are awesome.
Time of wonder, book of boredom.
It just drags. It's not badly written, but like many old books, it's incredibly wordy and just goes on forever. It seems older than a book written in 1957.
Living on an island is fun.
I dunno, electricity is nice.
Looking at it from the house's standpoint, it's a perfectly reasonable story. It's not great, but not bad. And it's rather dated.
Some houses prefer to be in the countryside.
In the words of War, "Why Can't We Be Friends?"
It seems like it's trying to say that you need to be nice to people for them to like you back, which is a decent message to have. It kind of reminds me of the book "Grumpy Cat" (not to be confused with the internet superstar).
Even creatures that don't get along at first can learn to appreciate each other.
Not enough substance.
This seems more like the introduction to a story than an actual story. It's not all that short by page length, but the amount of text per page, and what's conveyed, is just so small.
Be kind.
Try a little tenderness.
It is a fairly didactic book, which I was not expecting. I was actually expecting something sappy instead of something preachy. The main character spends so much time trying and failing to find happiness, that it's not really explained why love was the right answer.
Fame and beauty are unimportant. What's really important is love.
Pain-in-the-neck frog.
I guess it's just supposed to be funny, but I didn't think it was. I found it rather annoying instead. I don't like trouble for the sake of trouble, or things like pranks.
Don't take frogs to a fancy restaurant?
Ambiguity is fine for adults, but it may or may not work for kids.
Amazon says this is aimed at ages 4+, but this would go right over a preschooler's head, and unfortunately that might mean they would get a message that it's not okay to be scared. Plus a list of scary things that maybe they'll be able to "shoo" away and maybe they won't.
Don't be afraid of the world. Or, everybody is actually pretending that they're not afraid of the world.
Pick a lane.
Okay, there's this vegetarian T. Rex, and isn't that weird. Let's all make fun of him. Wait, he left, and now we miss him, so let's not make fun of him anymore. It's almost like vegetarianism is a random choice in this. Like they're trying to use vegetarianism as a metaphor for some other lifestyle choice that I really can't figure out.
Vegetarianism is good. Or, don't discriminate against people. I really wish it would pick one.
More of a window than a mirror for my kids.
As far as wilderness goes, she's lucky, and I'm glad she and her kids appreciate it. But it's so caught up in the beauty of nature and the awkwardness of its rhyming that it doesn't recognize that this situation is unusual.
Nature is wonderful.
