Book Review - Roly Poly Pangolin

PDub was here for a visit and Grammy was itching to find something new to read.  I needed a book for a baby shower gift, so I had the perfect excuse to browse the new children's picture books! 

You can see from the cover how this would catch my eye.  I should have known from the look in the Pangolin's eyes that this was the work of Anna Dewdney.  She is the author/illustrator of the Llama Llama books that PDub has enjoyed since he was teeny tiny. 

As I previewed the book, I was captured right away by its illustrations.  Anna has a way of illustrating characters that makes you say, "Aw," and "Ha!" from one page to the next.  And the illustrations are also B-I-G, and I think that makes them more appealing to two year olds. (and fifty-somethings, too!)

Now here in SC, if you hear roly poly, you think of this.

A pill bug, or roly poly, as we like to call them.  Unfortunately for them, children are easily entertained by getting these tiny critters to roll themselves up into a ball.

But a Pandolin is a mammal.  An endangered one.  It is toothless and doesn't see very well.  It's defense  is to roll up into a tight ball, and it makes itself almost impossible to pry apart.  The Pandolin has one baby at a time and the baby rides on the mother's tail sometimes.  If you visit Anna Dewdney's website, you will find much, much more fastinating information about this very special animal.

PDub loved the book!  How do I know?  Uh, ask any of the three of us who were with him this weekend who were asked to read it over and over and over.   We could even bribe convince him to do things he didn't want to do (like put on a new diaper) with the promise of reading it again. He also started to repeat the easy rhyme that is part of the book right away.  "Roly Poly, very small/ Doesn't like new things at all." Boy, we can relate to that, can't we?

I loved this book for several reasons.  One is that I learned something.  Another is that it reminded me how special our earth and all her creatures are.  It was fun to use this book to travel to a place I may never visit. 

Yeah, books have a way of doing that.

Roll on,
~Grammy