Toby's Lean-n-Mean Rainbow Clothes
Written: Dec 11 '02
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Promotes interaction with the book and hands-on activity for afterwards.
Cons: None really except that I don't like Toby's friends' names!
The Bottom Line: Whereas this book is short and the plot is thin, it is a fabulous book for interaction with your toddler!
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| deenaf's Full Review: Toby's Rainbow Clothes Books |
Toby's Rainbow Clothes by Cyndy Szekeres is a sweet, short book that touches many different topics of interest to young children, mostly toddlers and pre-schoolers. This book is just one of many Toby-based books. If you want to see the rest of the Toby books, check out http://www.simonsays.com/subs/apps/master_search.cfm?areaid=183&order=title
THE STORY
Toby's Rainbow Clothes is about a little mouse named Toby. The story takes place on Toby's birthday and his friends come over to spend the day with him. Fred the snail, Bob the bird, and Cynthia the frog are his friends and they come dressed up for his party.
Toby decides that rather than wear what his mother picked out for him, he wants to dress in rainbow clothes. Toby starts with red and works his way through the rainbow (in the correct order I might add... red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple.... more about the use of purple later).
Ultimately, you guessed it, Toby dresses himself in one article of clothing corresponding to each color of the rainbow. And his three friends helped him along the way.
THE BEST PART
The best part of Toby's Rainbow Clothes is that for each color that Toby conquers, the invisible narrator of the story asks the question of the reader: "What else in Toby's room is _____" or "What else do you see that is _______" corresponding to the colored item Toby is picking for that page. It really involves the reader in a tactile way by having him point to the items and it gets them to distiguish and classify things by color. An excellent skill for the 1 - 4 set!! It's never to early to promote color awareness.
BACK TO THE STORY
Once Toby is all dressed in his glorious rainbow clothes, his mother hugs him and his friends shout their birthday greeting. They then eat a beautiful (read... gross) looking birthday cake. Lastly, Toby's little friend, an ant, gives him a special gift.
THE COLOR PURPLE
I like that the author used purple instead of taking on the daunting task of discriminating between indigo and violet when having Toby choose his last layer of clothes. "Keep it simple stupid" is used to a tee here! LOL! I mean, they are toddlers, right?
MY THOUGHTS
The story ends with a question, "Where are the rainbow colors in your room?" I really like this as it brings the book to life and relates it directly to the child reading the book in regards to his own room. It also promotes verbal interaction between the child and the book reader. There is nothing better than being able to meld a book with real life and in Toby's Rainbow Clothes, that is exactly what happens.
Lastly, what I also really like is that a child can then go on and emulate Toby by choosing his OWN clothes in the colors of the rainbow. This makes Toby's Rainbow Clothes truly a hands on book/activity.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
deenaf
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 in Books |
 - Top 200 |
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Member: Deena
Location: Merrick, NY USA
Reviews written: 279
Trusted by: 72 members
About Me:
Mother, wife, teacher..... aren't they all the same?
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