I Will Surprise My Friend!

Early readers can be such a pain. They have to be easy to read, so they include a lot of very short, repetitititive sentences. I bet you can quote Dick and Jane here: See Spot. See Spot run. Run, Spot, run! Run, run, run! Short, easy to read, lots of practice with those three words... and boring as HECK. Who wants to read that more than once?

Or they do the same thing, but with rhyming: See the cat. The cat is fat. The fat cat sat. Sat on the mat. The fat cat sat on the mat. See the rat!

Ye gods. Now your kid will always be able to read -at words, but they'll read them all in a dreadful monotone, ill-suited for anything other than the phone book. Gotta indoctrinate them young to think reading is dull and boring!

Well, there is hope. show more Elephant and Piggie! This series does everything right.

First of all, the text is all dialog. Exciting, funny dialog with LOTS AND LOTS OF EXCLAMATION POINTS!!!! Ever see a first grader write? EVERY! SENTENCE! NEEDS! AN! EXCLAMATION! POINT!!!! YES IT DOES! You can't help but ham it up when you read, no matter HOW much you hate reading.

And when there is repetition - as there needs to be, to help children practice - it's natural. Piggie will say something, and then Elephant will repeat it in a disbelieving way. Or Elephant will say something and Piggie will repeat it to agree with him. (Doesn't happen much in this one.)

Secondly, the pictures are active and engaging and funny and dramatic. Not much distracting detail, either. But while the pictures are so active and engaging and funny and dramatic, they provide a LITTLE bit of help to the shaky reader... but not so much that they think they can look at the picture and not bother with those troublesome words.

Thirdly, the books are just interesting. When you're learning something now, you have to do it more than once. It's good for kids to re-read the same books over and over again... and I'm sure it saves the teacher money on stocking her classroom shelves! But what child, honestly, wants to read a beginning reader again? It's boring! They read it once, are you happy? Now they want to get to the good stuff!

I promise you, kids will want to read these books over and over again. I don't know through educational experience, no... but I know through watching my own two nieces. I know through looking at adults eagerly picking up these books to read. Adults! There's just something about them.

My favorite part of this book? Has to be comparing Gerald's visions of what might have happened to Piggie (gotten lost and fallen off a cliff, gotten snatched by a huge bird, gotten eaten by a monster) with Piggie's visions of what might have happened to Gerald (gone to eat lunch). show less

Mo Willems hits it out of the park once again. I laughed out loud reading this; the eyebrows on both Piggie and Gerald while they are planning to surprise each other (pgs. 16-19) say so much without a word. A limited vocabulary that works for emergent readers with an actual story and loads of humor is a tough thing to make, but Willems has it down. I can't wait to see what's next for Elephant and Piggie!

This book made me laugh out loud. Willems has an amazing knack for combining funny pictures with great quality writing. This is one in a series of books he has written from preschool to kindergarten level readers. There are only a few words on each page and the font is clear and easy to read. The simple pencil drawings show amazing expressions on the characters faces that they seem to leap off the page. Piggie the pig and Gerald the elephant are hiding from one another behind a big rock. At one point they realize they are both on the other side and they jump up and scream. On the next page there is no words, but the characters both look as if they just had a heart attack. I could not keep my laughter in. Willem managed to put humor into show more easy reader books, a factor that is often missing. My only complaint is that I wish the pig had a more creative name than just Piggie. show less

So we had a Gerald and Piggy licentious revel at the library just before Christmas and this one was maybe my favourite, because of all the coming around the big rock and the tension builds and then everybody goes "AAAAHH!!" Emmett chortled much.

I Will Surprise My Friend! is hilarious. Elephant and Piggie are out for a walk and come across a squirrel hiding to surprise his friend. As both squirrels loved the surprise, they quickly decide to it again. Naturally, Elephant and Piggie decide it is a good idea to surprise each other too. The joy of Elephant and Piggie books, of course, is not necessarily the plot. Telling the story is never as entertaining as reading it. Willems displays a multitude of emotions with his simple drawings, and the chemistry between Elephant and Piggie is fantastic. If you haven't read the Elephant and Piggie books, plop down at a bookstore or library and read a few. I bet you'll find yourself laughing and trying to figure out what friends and family show more members have children of appropriate ages to give these books. show less

Mo Willems' books are highly readable, funny, and always perfect for read alouds. His collection of Elephant and Piggie early readers are hilarious yet endearing, and teaches the value of friendship.

Assumptions started to build up when Piggie and Gerald play a game with the element of surprise. When they both hid behind the same big rock and didn’t see each other on the other side of it they started to assume the worst. Mo Willems reminds us that children’s imagination can skew their deductive reasoning assumptions. It was kind of interesting to see what the two friends concluded what happened to the other but it could’ve been better.