What Animals Really Like by FIona Robinson - ESSENTIAL

 Robinson, Fiona  What Animals Really Like.  Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2011.  PICTURE BOOK.  The National Animal Choir are performing a song composed and conducted by Mr. Herbert Timberteeth.  He has asked the animals to sing about what they really like, but it appears he got some of the words wrong.  As they perform, they begin to fill in the song with their version of how the song should be. Of course, songs should rhyme and the reader follows the text to do just that.  It is hilarious when you turn the page and discover that the expected rhyme wasn’t there:

"We are monkeys, and we like to play.

We are horses, and we like fresh hay.

We are worms, and we like to wiggle.

We are warthogs, and we like to...

...blow enormous bubbles.

It is good as a contrast to the typical phonemic rhyming books available.  It is a delightful illustration of finding diversity in individuals rather than just accepting the typical, expected sterotypes.  It was so fun to read this book and I laughed out loud while silently reading it among adults. I had to share it with them and they enjoyed the simple pictures as well as the fun text.   A friend shared with her 7-year-old granddaughter who declared it to be the “funnest book ever” and they read it over and over, laughing at the pictures and not-so-rhymes.  

ESSENTIAL.  Christine - Library Teacher