Far, Far From Home product reviews

I recently bought this book at the scholastic book fair held at my daughters school, I was drawn to the cool black cover with the little tiny glowing insect on the cover so opened up and gave it a quick skim read and seen the beautiful illustrations and decided it was the book I would buy for my son!

Now I love this book all the images are quite dark with black backgrounds and the glowing bug and they are really cool cartoon images of the little bug. The story is a sweet tale of a little bug captured and put in a bug by a young boy who is sad about being so far from home away from his own family. He breaks out of the jar and stars the long journey home. I love the ending where his mum tucks him up in bed and he tells her how much he loves her I think it is really sweet and the perfect ending to such a brilliant book.

Now while this is a book that my son at 18 months loves to sit and listen to and look at the pictures as he gets older he will be able to understand the messages in the book too. I know from being a child myself that I loved capturing bugs inside my bug viewer and never wanted to let them go again but this book would help children to understand why we should leave animals and bugs in their natural environment.

I really enjoyed reading Far, Far From Home to my preschoolers. I have always been fascinated by fireflies so seeing one on the cover with sparkly gold stars radiating from it's rear I had to read it. I was surprised to find that this book about a lost firefly was written and illustrated by New Zealanders. None of the characters were native to our beautiful country either. This didn't distract from my love of the book but seemed more like an American publication.

The text as a great rhythm and rhyme to it which makes it lots of fun. It also makes it a challenge to read aloud the first time. I recommend reading to yourself before getting tongue-tied in front of the kids. There was also a repetitive phrase that the children caught on to about half way through the book.

This is a story that is told more by the illustrations. There are text-less pages that allowed for lots of discussion about what was happening. This is great for their speech development and reading skills. The illustrations were delightful. The dark background highlighted the firefly and the other animals in the book.

Far, Far From home can be enjoyed by preschoolers but older children be able to understand the message about taking animals from their natural environment. The words are simple enough for a young reader to read independently but it is also a lovely story to read to your child or class.

Of all the books we have been reading this week this book has been a clear winner with Miss Four. She loves the cover which has a picture of the "tiny little bug" ,( being a firefly), looking very sad with beautiful sparkly stars behind him. These are a metallic silver and catch the light beautifully. Miss Four is very concerned about the safety pin holding his heart on so we have had to pretend that he is a special bug who is wearing a green t-shirt!

This story begins on the first page where the bug is in a jar labelled Sam's bug. He then escapes and the story begins.

Each page has four rhyming lines that are somewhat repetitive so your little one will start to learn the words and can repeat them with you. The story follows the little bugs journey to find his home as he encounters but escapes many hazards on the way. The illustrations are so beautiful. Set with a black background (it is night) the colours stand out vividly. I just love the colours.

Miss Four is fixated on every page and we spend time talking about each picture ie counting how many eyes the spider has, how long the frogs tongue is etc. Of course we also have to keep discussing the heart! We read this during the day but it is lovely reading as the last night story when little bug curls up with his mother. Miss Four has picked up a lot of the words so it is a great book to do word recognition with.

This is just a delightful book that is perfect for preschoolers. We love it and I am sure you and your preschooler will as well!

What an absolutely beautiful children's book this is. The first thing you notice about this book is the cover art. Its such an inviting book. The dark black night, with the greenery and the friendly looking bug on the front. I suspect he is a firefly of some sort. He drew my daughter right to him, because she is insect mad. She loved his light and the sparkly stars trailing behind him, that really sparkle!

Inside the first couple of pages are wordless setting the scene of how the bug gets so far, far from home. Because the pages were wordless, they allowed us to sit and discuss what was happening. We pointed out things on each page, and discussed what might have happened and what might happen next. This is great for early literacy and story planning skills. Once we got into the story proper, the book flowed like a rhyming song. Each page has a verse and it is so easy to read along. I didn't feel like I was going to stumble on anything.

The illustrations continued to delight us. We could see all sorts of things and clues to what was coming next in each page. We talked about how the bug might be feeling and what each new situation could mean. Although it is all set at night it never feels too dark or boring. Its a beautiful book invoking plenty of discussion and I know its going to be a new favourite for my insect collecting daughter.