{"id":312,"date":"2009-01-09T11:35:08","date_gmt":"2009-01-09T15:35:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/2009\/01\/09\/review-of-are-you-ready-to-play-outside-by-mo-willems\/"},"modified":"2009-06-25T22:03:14","modified_gmt":"2009-06-26T02:03:14","slug":"review-of-are-you-ready-to-play-outside-by-mo-willems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=312","title":{"rendered":"Review of Are You Ready to Play Outside? by Mo Willems"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"play_outside.jpg\"<\/em><\/p>\n

Are You Ready to Play Outside?<\/em><\/p>\n

An Elephant & Piggie Book<\/em><\/p>\n

by Mo Willems<\/p>\n

Hyperion Books for Children, 2008.\u00a0 57 pages.<\/p>\n

Starred Review.<\/p>\n

Sonderbooks Standout 2009:\u00a0 #5 Picture Books<\/p>\n

Geisel Award Winner 2009<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.pigeonpresents.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.hyperionbooksforchildren.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Mo Willems is a genius.\u00a0 I am currently reading several books that tell me\u00a0it is not my circumstances that determine my happiness, but the story I tell myself about those circumstances.\u00a0 I have heard sermons about contentment.\u00a0 I have lectured at length to my children that complaining will only make them unhappy.<\/p>\n

None of those things was remotely as effective as this book.\u00a0 Not as funny, either!<\/p>\n

Now, I was set up to enjoy this book.\u00a0 The day before I read it, I was doing a quick run to the grocery store.\u00a0 We had expected an ice storm, but instead we got nasty, cold, heavy, near-freezing rain.<\/p>\n

I do not like rain in the winter.\u00a0 I tend to think how much I would prefer snow.\u00a0 Rain in winter is almost as cold as snow, but not as pretty, and not as fun.\u00a0 It soaks into your clothes much more quickly, and doesn’t brighten a dark day like snow does.<\/p>\n

As I came out of the grocery store, the fleeting thought crossed my mind that it was a shame I had to make a grocery run today.\u00a0 Loading groceries into the car in the pouring, cold rain is not a fun thing to do.\u00a0<\/p>\n

No sooner had that thought crossed my mind than I looked up and saw a mother and son walking toward the store.\u00a0 The mother had an umbrella, but the little boy, about three years old, wasn’t paying any attention to staying under it.\u00a0 He was positively dancing with joy at being out in the rain.\u00a0 His shiny yellow boots splashed the pavement with zest, and you could instantly see how excited he was about this wondrous chance to go shopping in the rain!<\/p>\n

Kind of put things in perspective for me!<\/p>\n

The next day, this book, Are You Ready to Play Outside? <\/em>came to the library.<\/p>\n

Piggie is so excited about playing outside with Gerald!\u00a0 They will run!\u00a0 They will skip!\u00a0 They will jump!\u00a0 NOTHING will stop them!<\/p>\n

Then it begins to rain.<\/p>\n

It pours.\u00a0 Piggie is NOT a happy pig.<\/p>\n

Gerald, an elephant, first tries shielding Piggie with his ear, but it is still raining.\u00a0 Piggie doesn’t see how anyone could possibly play\u00a0outside with all this rain.<\/p>\n

Then they see two worms come out, exuberantly happy, splishing and splashing in the rain.<\/p>\n

They decide to try it.\u00a0 They run!\u00a0 They skip!\u00a0 They jump!\u00a0<\/p>\n

Piggie decides he loves rain!\u00a0 He hopes it rains all day!<\/p>\n

Then it stops.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Piggie is not a happy pig.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, Piggie has an elephant for a friend, who has a solution.<\/p>\n

Of course, once again, what makes this book a masterpiece is Mo Willems’ amazing ability to convey emotion with his simple cartoon drawings.\u00a0 For example, Piggie’s frustration over the rain is palpable.\u00a0 And I never imagined that worms could look so joyful!\u00a0 Elephant and Piggie turning somersaults and kicking up their heels in the rain proclaim complete exuberance.\u00a0 Add to that the suspense of the early-reader language and timing, with each expression and emotion getting full page treatment, and you have an utterly magnificent book.<\/p>\n

It’s funny.\u00a0 It’s emotional.\u00a0 And it conveys a life-changing lesson in a way that sticks.<\/p>\n

What more could you ask for in an easy reader?<\/p>\n

Buy from Amazon.com<\/font><\/a><\/p>\n

Find this review on Sonderbooks<\/a> at: www.sonderbooks.com\/Picture_Books\/play_outside.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Are You Ready to Play Outside? An Elephant & Piggie Book by Mo Willems Hyperion Books for Children, 2008.\u00a0 57 pages. Starred Review. Sonderbooks Standout 2009:\u00a0 #5 Picture Books Geisel Award Winner 2009 http:\/\/www.pigeonpresents.com\/ http:\/\/www.hyperionbooksforchildren.com\/ Mo Willems is a genius.\u00a0 I am currently reading several books that tell me\u00a0it is not my circumstances that determine […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45,49,15,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-animal-characters","category-easy-readers","category-picture-book-review","category-starred-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=312"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}