Inkle and Eckle - The Frog on the Dog product reviews

We won this book through KIWIreviews! (thank you!!) Mr3 was so excited and when we opened it the chocolate treat your team sent us had kind of leaked and melted - crisis? well no! This book is made of such quality paper that it wiped clean.

I love that the book is large and the pictures use fantastic bright colours with not too much detail - so great for the littlies. The rhyming words are great and captivated my boys. And on top of this it is a great learning story about accepting everyone, even if you don't like them to start with, be patient and give them a chance!! My son loves parties and any book with food, so he now can tell me all about the food on the page where Inkle feeds Eckle.

Another great feature is that it has page numbers! This is uncommon in kids books, but as Mr 3 is learning to count, it aids to help him too! So at the end of the book we went back and counted the pages.

As i said this book was a prize, i see that it retails for $24.99 so is a bit expensive for a children's book, but it was such a lovely easy to follow story, i would recommend it - Alison has signed out copy, so this is a book we will be sure to treasure!

First thing you have to keep in mind with this book is that it is NOT published by a major publisher - it's self-published by the author via a small, niche publishing company. This means it's going to be a little more expensive than you are used to, but only slightly. Your best bet is to contact the author directly through her new, still under development, website.

http://inkleandeckle.com

The story is simple, fairly short, but very clever and educational without being 'preachy' about it... it shows that sometimes you don't always have to like someone to make a great team, and sometimes the 'annoying people' in your life actually have a heart of gold, even if they also have the most annoying habits. This is a lesson that, if learned as a child, can have very long-lasting benefits for our future generations and I love the way Alison has put it across in such a 'soft glove' kind of way. It almost got past me!

When Mr3 saw this book, he was immediately keen to have it for his storytime that night, callously shoving aside his up-until-then favourite "365 Disney Bedtime Stories" which has been staple diet for months now! Since then, this frog-&-dog duo have been regular requests for storytime when it's Dad's turn... because Dad does better gruffly voices for the canine characters.

The artwork was bright and very appropriate, despite a slightly 'rushed through' feel I got from some images. Mr3 adored any picture that showed Eckle the frog dancing, but especially loved the scene with Eckle's tongue grabbing food. Having three pet frogs ourselves, and having watched them catching and gobbling flies, Mr3 knows all about frog's tongues... so he was quick to spot how "...it looks like my tongue, not fwoggie tongue! And fwogs say 'ribbit ribbit' not words!" which I thought was pretty cool thoughts for a 3yr old! None the less, he still loved that silly green "fwoggie!"

Overall, a great book, and really wonderful to see another Kiwi author making a go of it in the literary world. It would be great to see this book being picked up by a bigger publishing house though, so it's very important - but oh so subtle - message can be spread far and wide. Great work Alison, and we're proud to showcase this great book.