Gorillas In Our Midst product reviews

My children ranging from 23 months to 8 years all love gorillas and Gorillas in our Midst was particularly appealing to them as the cover has a huge gorilla in clothes sitting on a train. Each page has a gorilla in a disguise or hiding in a crowd. The pictures are delightful and the story simple but fun.

Miss 8 chose to read this book as soon as we got it home. She was able to read it independently. Her younger sister, Miss 6.5, sat down to listen to it. Although big sister was concentrating mainly on the words, little sister was having a big discussion about the pictures. She continues to talk about them every time I read this to her.

It certainly is an entertaining book about where gorillas are hiding in your neighbourhood. One of the two year olds I care for delights in pointing out all bananas in the book and thinks the end pages which are like banana wallpaper are hysterical. She also points out the gorilla and says "Ooo,ahh ahh" which is what she says for all primates and monkeys. I have had to be very careful where I leave the book when she is here as it would have been loved to bits if she has it unsupervised.

This is a hard covered book which is a good value gift for a young child although as an adult I have enjoyed rereading it over and over for the children. My school girls enjoyed it as much as the preschoolers.

When I showed this book to my 4 year old, she was thrilled. She loves books so much. She flopped down onto the floor and started to flip through all the pages looking at the illustrations. This book is a hardcover book, which is great. I love hard cover books especially with little kids. The harder cover allows they to flip through the pages more easily. They don't have to worry about the cover flipping closed on them.

When my eldest daughter saw the book, she was excited too. She sat down with her sister and I gently suggested that she read the book to her. She was a little nervous about it, but after the first page she realised that the word count was going to be light and the language was simple enough. These were important for her as she lacks confidence with books at times.

It was such a great feeling, watching her read the book to her sister. They giggled together at the pictures. They talked about what was happening from page to page as well. It was so cute watching the ending of the book dawn upon them as well. They had a good laugh at it, and then decided to check us adults to make sure none of us were gorillas too.

I found that after that reading, my daughter read it several more times by herself or to her sister. I read it aloud to them both as well. It's a fun read. It's quick and easy prose, but the illustrations really draw you page to page. We found that we read it almost every day, after school and once at bedtime too. The ending is funny and it remained so for the kids every time. Like it was a secret they knew and delighted in at every reading.

$27 is a great price for a hard cover book. These can sometimes go for as much as $35. This book would be a great Christmas present if you were looking to start building up your gift supplies. It would also be good for summer or school holiday reading.