Baby Librarian Marian and her mommy Margaret review three nonfiction board books from the Mibo Animal Series by Madeleine Rogers: The Safari Set
Marian reviews The Safari Set
I know Mommy says we’re going to review all three books, but I only like one–The Safari Set. But it’s really good! One of my favorite books of all time. It has a lion on two of the pages, and on my favorite page, the lion goes ROAR!!!! Then Mommy makes this really cool roaring sound and she moves the book close to me like the lion is going to eat me up. It’s an exciting page. I usually have Mommy re-read it several dozen times.
The other pages are good too, so sometimes I let Mommy read all the pages. In particular, there’s a cool zebra page, where the zebras hide in the tall grass, and their stripes help camouflage them. A zebra is on the front cover too, but it’s much cooler when they hide in the grass. The words in the book rhyme, which is nice. I much prefer books with a good beat, and this one does.
Margaret reviews The Jungle Crew
and The Polar Pack
While Marian prefers The Safari Set, my favorite is The Polar Pack, mainly because of a really clever illustration of a baby penguin hatching. You can see part of the page on the featured image.
*Adding that after I originally wrote this, Marian decided The Jungle Crew was her favorite and made me read it many many times this morning.*
Each book begins with a brief description of an ecosystem. From The Jungle Crew: “Inside the leafy jungle, in the dappled light, there’s endless mischief going on throughout the day and night.” Rogers then creates verses and illustrations for five animals, and at the very end, she gives fun facts about each of the five animals. Parents get to learn something here! While I usually know quite a few of the fun facts (I love animals), I have learned a couple of things. Like macaws have bones in their tongues!
Overall, with their catchy rhythm, short length, and clever illustrations, these books are perfect for toddlers. Parents, you may tire of reading them over and over again, but these are genuinely good books, so it’s not so bad. At least it’s not Goodnight Moon!
There are 6 books total in the series, though we only have these 3. We’re missing: The Forest Folk, The Marine Team, and The Sky Guys. I’m looking forward to collecting them all!
If you’re looking for more animal books, you might like these wombat books.