2 stars
| This is part of the Really Useful Stories series to help teach children how to be good friends. Nice story about turn taking. The illustrations were nice and go along well with the text. At the end of the book, there are some suggested questions to facilitate shared reading between adults and children. If I’m going to nitpick, I would say that I wish Belle had a more active role. She is clearly upset when she doesn’t get a fair turn, but doesn’t say anything. I think it’s great to teach children to take turns, but I think it is also just as important to teach children when to speak up if they don’t think something is fair. It was especially disheartening to see considering Belle is literally the only female character in the book and she only has one line in the entire book. Literally one line (okay maybe two if you could “Peep, peep” as a line?). She is featured on all but one page spread and only has one speaking line? Flynn constantly talks over her and even after he “learns his lesson”, she still doesn’t get any lines. This was really disappointing to see in a book published in 2018. Goodreads |