Illustrator: Dawn Phillips
Genre: Children's Beginning Reader
Source: Received a review copy from R & D Children's Books
The Adventures of Daniel and Christen is a cute picture book. In the beginning we find Daniel lying in his back yard staring up at the clouds. He is joined by his best friend Christen. This immediately brought to my mind the endless summer days my sisters and I would lay in the yard looking at the sky and shapes of the clouds. So now I've started the book with a warm fuzzy feeling. Suddenly the boys see pirates and they hide. The pirates are looking for treasure. The boys are captured and put in an old cage. If that isn't terrifying enough for young boys, they find a purple polka-dotted python staring them down. The python gets tied up in knots and the boys escape. Suddenly they are on the back of a sea-monster. Then they are shaken awake by Daniel's mother. The boys had fallen asleep. As they are walking back to the house they step on something and realize it is gold coins. You are left to wonder, was it really all a dream?
I had only two small problems with the book and that is because I am an adult, whereas a child would probably not find this a problem. The first problem is the story takes you from the boys lying in the grass to hiding behind a bush from the pirates. It seems the next step should have been they heard the pirates then hid. My other problem was with them getting a drink of ocean water. These were my only problems with the book. It was a great story line otherwise. The illustrations are absolutely wonderful. They are so bright and cheerful. Kids will spend hours just looking at all that is going on in the pictures. I am looking forward to sharing this book with my grandkids when they come for Thanksgiving this next week. I am blessed each Thanksgiving with grandkids who want me to sit and read to them. This is one of those books I will thankfully share. Although this is a picture book geared toward beginning readers it is a book I can use in my middle school classroom. There were examples of alliteration and other types of figurative language within it's short pages and would make it easier for students to understand those elements.
I would like to thank R & D Children's Books for giving me the opportunity to read and review this book. I look forward to reading more from them.
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