Roaring Brook Press After the Fall (How Humpty Dumpty Got Back Up Again)

My 20 month old boy loves Humpty and love this book. Such a beautiful lesson to be taught to kids…even if you fall you can get back up.

Humpty Dumptyが壁から落ちた歌は有名ですが、この本はその後のhumptyの本です。 高所で鳥に近い位置にいるのが好きだけど、落ちた経験から高所恐怖症になったHumpty。そこからの彼の工夫の努力と、克服して羽ばたくまでのストーリーです。 絵も面白いですし、ストーリーもくすっと笑えます。おすすめ。

Hands down, tihs is my favorite children’s picture book of the year! We checked it out of the library but as soon as we closed it, I ordered it from Amazon! Reading other reviews of this book was interesting. We did not see it quite the same way as many. I asked my daughter to tell me in one sentence what the book was about when we finished. She is eight, and her summary was, “It is about overcoming fear so you can do great things.” Exactly, how I saw this book too. It is a subtle point but I do not think it is about overcoming failure as much as it is overcoming fear. It is not a failure to have an accident. Fear of falling again is what held Humpty back after the accident. There is a lovely, poignant picture of Humpty sleeping on the floor in the foreground. In the background we see his raised bed with a desk underneath. On the wall around his bed are taped pictures of birds. The words are moving. “Fortunately, all the king’s men managed to put me back together. Well, most of me. There were some parts that couldn’t be healed with bandages and glue.” That is all it says. I asked my daughter to explain to me what that meant and what clues she saw in the picture that helped her understand those words. We had a great discussion. The book goes onto to show Humpty overcoming his fear and becoming what he was always destined to be. Great, encouraging story that we both loved. We were going on and on about it so much that my husband read it next and loved it too! The illustrations are also superb and really add poignancy to the words. My favorite illustration though was laugh-out-loud funny. We see Humpty in the grocery store at the cereal aisle. He is holding a sad cereal called BO Rings (yuck) and looking sadly up at the shelves of cereal. All the great looking and sounding cereals are on the top 2 shelves. The only cereals reachable without a ladder are pretty horrible looking and sounding. The boxes are grayish, green without a lot of color and sport names like Sad Clown, Cardboard, Twigs & Berries, Leaves, Grown-Up Food, Fiber Flakes, Bland, Flax, Bag-o-Cereal, Chia...you get the idea! The top shelf holds cereals like Fruit Hoops, Sugar Bunny, Rainbow Bites, Tiger Crunch, Just Marshmellow, Free Toy, Bowl-o-Cookies, Sugar Elf, Pirate Crunch...so funny! It made a nice comic relief. We are probably in the minority but we did not love The Adventures of Beekle:The Unimaginary Friend but with this book Dan Santat knocks it out of the park!

For a picture book, it is expensive and in poor condition. A part of the spine has a cut. The back cover has a crease. I am not asking fore replacement or refund in consideration of my carbon footprint. The only good point is that I can't get this locally and the delivery was fast.

A new take on an old favourite. Love the twist ending

Un classique. Plaît aux enfants