Stomp! Board Book product reviews

This book ticks all the boxes that I look for in a must buy book, as a preschool teacher and as a mum. The book immediately captivates toddlers and pre-schoolers as it has DINOSAURS in it, - an instant win with most children. The illustrations are bright and fun, the dinosaurs look friendly and the colours are just wonderful. When you open the pages you the book has rhyming text that is short, and predictable and fun. If you want to take the text further and develop children's language base there are sound effects that you can make for each page. "splat, splosh, snap, splash".

When I first read the book, I could immediately envision acting this story out with a small group, EG: under creepers crawl. - I tried it with my three year olds and it was a huge success, - this could easily become a favourite story! There are opportunities to experiment with sound, "Roar" now "ssh" the babies gone to sleep. There are mathematical learning opportunities woven into the beautiful bright illustrations, the dinosaurs are serrated from largest to smallest. There are opportunities to group, how many dinosaurs with short front feet? How many dinosaurs with triangles on their backs?

I think the message of friendship is so woven within the pages, and there is a subtle message that we all have things to offer our friends, the littlest dinosaur has an opportunity to lead the group, - and subtly telling the reader that size doesn't matter. I would highly recommend this book as a valued addition to your book shelf. It is easy to see it will become a favourite story with both children and Mums and Dads. The pages are the perfect size for little hands, and the thick sturdy pages will with stand the durability test of toddlers.

I have actually purchased Stomp before in paperback form, but only as a gift for another child. We like Ruth Paul in our house and particularly the Flash books. When this book came up for review, I thought we would skip it. Not because I didn't think it was a good story, but because my youngest made it clear recently that dinosaurs don't really interest her. My eldest would not be too keen to own a new board book, so I left it in the box.

Along comes Miss 3 though, and what does she spy but a board book in a box. She took it, and I stumbled upon her pouring over the pages quietly in our room. She was all snuggled up with her Minnie Mouse doll and she was pointing to the dinosaurs, the baby in particular and laughing and babbling away to herself. When she noticed me, she waved me in and showed me the book. "Look at the baby", she said. She showed me the story as she understood it.

At first all the dinosaurs are following a T-Rex, and the baby is at the end of the group. The baby wants to play, but is getting a rough deal. Then it's time to swap and the baby takes over. This is essentially what she told me about the book as she "read" it to me. Now, considering she can not read I thought that was pretty brilliant. Just from the illustrations alone, she was able to figure out what was happening through the story.

When I added the words to the story, it didn't change the meaning for her or me. It just gave her some actions that she could join in on. She stomped, she roared, she tried rolling too. She pointed to every word she could find on the page, asking me to read. Once I was done, she read it to me again. This time, some of the same words in the story came with her re-telling. Then Minnie had a go at telling the story too.

This is how bedtime has been for the last week. The story is told at least three times before bed. She loves that baby dinosaur so much. Sometimes I catch her just staring lovingly at the baby on the page in a quiet moment. So for a child who doesn't even like dinosaurs, I think that this book has converted her. For a dino-mad child, this book would be a massive winner. But it is clearly just a great book. It's engaging and fun, and being in board book form it is nice and sturdy too. Miss 3 is not particularly gentle with pages when she is trying to turn them, so it made a nice change to have a book that I didn't have to say "please be gentle with the book" to her.