Studio Mouse

Roo and Lumpy spend a spring day playing. That's it. The pictures are fine, but the writing has short, simple, and sterile sentences to which someone has frequently appended exclamation points in the hopes of making them more exciting.

(Pooh Project: Phase 2! I've managed to catalog all the shorter Pooh projects my family owns (see the list rel="nofollow" target="_top">here). While I work through few remaining longer Pooh books we own, I'm missing my daily dose of Pooh, so I'm going to start seeking out some of the Pooh books I don't own – yet – from libraries IRL and online. See the reviews here.)… (mehr)

Pooh and his pals introduce some basic concepts in a set of six board books intended for toddlers. All of them have standard Disney art, and most of them are told in simple rhymes. I think kids might have more using the boxed set as a toy, though, taking the books in and out of the box and carrying it around by its handle.

The accompanying audio CD has bland narration and a couple innocuous songs, but there are no character voices.

Pooh and Friends: ABCs ~ 2 stars ~

A generic alphabet book with a sprinkling of Pooh characters.

Pooh and Friends: Animals ~ 3 stars ~

The Pooh friends meet various animals and learn the sounds they make.

It's a little weird that the fact that the Pooh friends are animals themselves is not directly addressed. The anonymous writer even goes so far as to include a pig as one of the animals while Piglet is notably absent from the book.

Regardless, I'm awarding a bonus star for sneaking in Thomas O'Malley of The Aristocats as the exemplar for cats. Crossover!

Pooh and Friends: Colors ~ 3 stars ~

A nice little rhyming book about colors with the Pooh friends. I like that the ending is sort of ominous for a Pooh book.

Pooh and Friends: 123s ~ 2 stars ~

Five sets of couplets lead readers through counting from one to ten with the Pooh friends. Having to stop and count the pictured objects between lines sort of mucks up the rhyming scheme.

Pooh and Friends: Opposites ~ 2 stars ~

Some bland couplets about opposites. Not too bad, not much good.

Pooh and Friends: Shapes ~ 1 star ~

Bad rhymes and some very dubious -- okay, okay, they're just wrong -- shape examples.

(My Pooh Project: I love Winnie the Pooh, and so does my wife. Having a daughter gave us a chance to indoctrinate her into the cult by buying and reading her every Pooh book we came across. How many is that? I’m going to count them this year by reading and reviewing one every day and seeing which month I finally run out. Track my progress here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/23954351-rod-brown?ref=nav_mybooks&she... )… (mehr)

Bad rhymes and some very dubious -- okay, okay, they're just wrong -- shape examples.

(My Pooh Project: I love Winnie the Pooh, and so does my wife. Having a daughter gave us a chance to indoctrinate her into the cult by buying and reading her every Pooh book we came across. How many is that? I’m going to count them this year by reading and reviewing one every day and seeing which month I finally run out. Track my progress here:
rel="nofollow" target="_top">https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/23954351-rod-brown?ref=nav_mybooks&she... )… (mehr)

Some bland couplets about opposites. Not too bad, not much good.

(My Pooh Project: I love Winnie the Pooh, and so does my wife. Having a daughter gave us a chance to indoctrinate her into the cult by buying and reading her every Pooh book we came across. How many is that? I’m going to count them this year by reading and reviewing one every day and seeing which month I finally run out. Track my progress here:
rel="nofollow" target="_top">https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/23954351-rod-brown?ref=nav_mybooks&she... )… (mehr)