Review of In My Patch and In My Forest
By Gillian Benke, VancouverMom.ca Reviewer.
It was important to us when we became parents that books have an big place in our kids’ lives. We read to our three-year-old son every night before bed and at one year old, our daughter already loves exploring picture books.
As any parent will agree, board books are where it’s at for the under four crowd. We’ve had more than our share of ripped pages and ruined treasures and only now can we occasionally trust our son with paper pages without hovering over him fearing that awful tearing sound.
We’re always looking for new and fun books that both our kids will enjoy. A while ago we were given In My Tree by Sara Gillingham and Lorena Siminovich. I didn’t realize at the time that this adorable book was part of a series, but we just got the opportunity to read In My Patch and In My Forest. Published by Chronicle Books, the series is just lovely. In each story there is sweet little felt finger puppet that sticks out through the layered cut outs that are in the centre of each page.
In My Patch is the story of a little mouse that lives in a pumpkin patch. Each page is a different activity that he likes to do – playing in the leaves, nibbling on seeds – ending the day (not to give away the ending!) curled up in her nest with her family. In My Forest is a very similar outline, but with a lovely little deer talking about his day in the snowy forest.
The whole series is bright and wonderfully illustrated with patchwork style artwork. Our daughter is infatuated with these books and the sturdy construction ensures she won’t be pulling the little mouse out of her pumpkin patch any time soon! While the stories are a little short for our son’s bedtime routine, he loves watching the finger puppets move as the story unfolds.
In My Patch and In My Forest are perfect books to introduce fall and winter themes and imagery to your children, and will make lovely gifts this holiday season.
Gillian Behnke is a blogger at Finding My Weigh, where she writes about the joys and challenges of motherhood and her quest to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Gillian is also the marketing manager for the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation, BC/Yukon Region. She lives in North Vancouver with her husband, her three year old son and eleven month old daughter.
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The timing of the review is amazing as we recently added In my Tree and In my Den to our line up of Children’s book at http://www.raspberrykids.com and I loved them so much, we are now adding the rest of the series.
Pages and pages of pure cuteness!
Great review Gillian!
Sue
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Sue Sinclair, Raspberry Kids Chief Executive Mom
My 11 month old absolutely adores the series as well. She sits in my lap while we read and is just in awe of the moving animal in the middle. Her favorite is ‘In My Nest’ as she tries to imitate a chirping bird and pats (more like grabs) the birdie in the middle. The series is a definite favorite in our home!