Author: Janina Rossiter (no website found)
Publisher: Amazon
Rating: WARTY!
Tovi the Penguin is a series of books in which Tovi is as Tovi does. In this particular richly-colored adventure, he goes camping with two penguin friends. Does that make them frienguins? Sporting packed and rather heavy-looking backpacks, they hike off into the pine forest and eventually find the camping site.
It's dark when they get there, but this doesn't deter them. They have to raise their tent if they want warmth and shelter for the night, but they're ready and capable, and soon they have the tent erected and a nice fire to sit around. Everything is perfect isn't it? Except for the odd noise they can hear as they're about to drift off to sleep.
What is that crack-crack-crack? Though the penguins are nervous, they have to find out. The source of the noise turned out to be highly improbable, especially given that they hear it in the middle of the night from a creature which isn't active at that time of day.
I had thought that this book might offer something of educational value with regard to camping. I mean why set it in a camping milieu if not to teach kids a bit about that? If it's just to show them they can rely on friends and don't need to be scared of every little noise they hear, then that's all well and good, but such a story could have been set anywhere. Why waste such a golden opportunity?
I understand that not every children's book needs to be a lesson in field craft (or whatever the implied topic is, but why waste an opportunity to impart something of value? They could have been shown arriving in daylight and hastening to erect the tent before it gets dark. We could have seen a bit about how the tent is put up, and how they start the fire, and how they keep the fire from spreading and starting a brush fire. We could have seen something about the wisdom of not keeping food in the tent which might attract ants. As it was I felt let down and I felt children would be too, especially older ones in the recommended age range.
I know it was aimed at two- to six-year-olds, which seems like an odd spread of age to me, and two-year-olds are not going to get much out of it in terms of camp craft, but six year olds certainly can, and this story, beautiful as it was to look at, failed children at the older end of that scale by not delivering enough in my opinion. Even two-year-olds can appreciate being tickled as you tell them not to let ants in the tent, and they can hide under a blanket and pretend it's a tent.
I really felt this story could have and should have been much more than it was, and I can't therefore in good faith recommend it. I hope the author will be more imaginative and inventive in future volumes in the series because this has the potential to be so much more.
