Putangitangi Walks product reviews

As an Early Childhood Teacher I always look forward to getting new books to read to the children. Books about animals are always a hit with the children who I care for any my nursery children were extremely excited when they saw me bringing out a book about a duck for mat time, and they new exactly what the book was to be about, even at such a young age.

This is such a gorgeous book about a cute little duck named Putangitangi (which means Paradise Shelduck in English).Putangitangi goes on a walk looking for her friend who she finds in the end. The story takes us through Putangitangi hunt for her friend and then shows us Putangitangi's cheeky nature once her firend has been found as she tries to play with him, giving him plenty of frights and tricks along the way. The nursery children were very drawn to the ducks on each page and got excited to see each one. The toddler children who I read the story to in the afternoon also enjoyed it they laughed and laughed at cheeky Putangitangi and loved to find the picture of the frog hiding on each page. They were also interested in learning what the name Putangitangi meant and finding out the difference in colours between the male and female ducks.

The images in the book are very well done, very bright and colourful and they beautifully represent the lovely environment of greenery and water which we are lucky to have here in Aotearoa. As a teacher my colleagues and I all agreed that it was nice to see some Te Reo being introduced into a children's book without it being written in full Te Reo which is often to hard for us to read, it would be great to see more books following along these lines.

A beautiful, simple rhyming book which caters well to the needs of children from the ages of infants right up to preschoolers due to it's short sentences on each page. Having only a few words per page also means that it is quite a good book for those who are just learning to read and my 4 year old has loved learning to recognise the words and to retell the story at bedtime each night for the past couple of weeks, it is great to see her developing a lifetime love of learning.

My young son loves birds and has had a love for ducks from a very young age wanting to go to the local reserve area to feed the ducks as often as possible. I personally love New Zealand children's books and when they are off a topic relating to New Zealand nature or wildlife I am always keen to add them to the home collection as I feel it important for my children to be aware of the wildlife of our own country. I immediately was drawn to Putangitangi walks as the cheeky duck looked like a great character.

The storyline is very simple with a few short words per page describing what Putangitangi was getting up to. The cheeky duck going about simple activities by himself before finding his friend and repeating the activities together. A very simple idea that young children will enjoy beautifully illustrated with simple pictures that show the ducks in their natural NZ habitat. I love the friendly faces of Putangitangi and his friend.

Included in the book is some information about paradise shelduck in New Zealand to add a little bit extra to the story and provide some information about the ducks. I also enjoyed the addition of information regarding why in Maori language Putangitangi remains the same even when there are two ducks as there are no S's in Maori language. I felt it quite cool that this was mentioned as I would probably not have noticed otherwise.