{"id":5137,"date":"2012-09-09T10:22:32","date_gmt":"2012-09-09T08:22:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jozikids.co.za\/zaparents-blog\/?p=5137"},"modified":"2022-06-22T10:36:35","modified_gmt":"2022-06-22T08:36:35","slug":"my-friend-is-sad-and-other-books-by-mo-willems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jozikids.co.za\/blog\/lifestyle\/book-reviews\/my-friend-is-sad-and-other-books-by-mo-willems\/","title":{"rendered":"My Friend Is Sad, and other books by Mo Willems"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Elephant and Piggie<\/em> is a book series by\u00a0Mo Willems. It has a fantastic comic book style, and features two friends: an elephant, Gerald, and a pig, Piggie.<\/p>\n

Issues of friendship are addressed: My Friend Is Sad, Should I Share My Ice Cream? Can I Play Too? I Will Surprise My Friend!<\/em> And my favourite, We Are In A Book!<\/em><\/p>\n

My Friend Is Sad <\/em>begins with Gerald, the ellie, who has a very sad face. Piggie tries all sorts of things to cheer him up: dressing up as a cowboy, a clown and a robot. But Gerald remains sad. Eventually we discover that Gerald is sad because Piggie isn\u2019t there, and because he can\u2019t share the cool cowboy, clown and robot with Piggie \u2013 whom he is unable to recognise beyond the disguise. Happily, it all works out in theend, with a clever twist (that I subsequently spotted in all of the Elephant and Piggie<\/em> books).<\/p>\n

Mo Willems\u2019s books are not only gorgeous to look at and easy to read, with very clean, well-designed pages and simple text \u2013 they\u2019re also widely recognised: Two books in the series have been listed on Time<\/em> magazine’s \u2018Top 10 Children’s Books of the Year\u2019: Today I Will Fly<\/em> in 2007 and Elephants Cannot Dance!<\/em> in 2009.<\/p>\n

In terms of target reader, I\u2019d say parents could read these books to toddlers from age 1, but \u2013 as the pages are paper rather than board \u2013 solo reading would probably be best from ages 2 to 4. And the range of books would be good to keep, to come back to in primary school, when it comes to navigating friendships and conflicts.<\/p>\n

This article was originally written for Jozikids by Tiffany Markman in 2012.<\/em><\/p>\n

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