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// The Tortoise and the Baboon // by Gill Howell Publisher: Dingles/ Treehouse Court, 2007 Language: English Reading Level: Ages 5-7 ISBN: 1596466871 Paperback, 16 pages
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Gill Howell is an author of numerous children’s books including //The Tortoise and the Baboon, Oxford Reading Tree: Stage 9: TreeTops Fiction More Stories// and has done extensive research on guided reading strategies. Although he has written some stories, he has also created guided reading cards to aid teachers in doing a guided reading of his books, or others.
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Baboon meets Tortoise and feels mischievous. He invites Tortoise over for dinner, deciding that he is going to play a trick on him. Since Tortoise is naturally slow, it took him a long time in the hot sun to get to Baboon’s house. When Tortoise finally arrives, Baboon is smiling and explains that he took too long to get there and that he already ate all the food. Tortoise, being hungry and tired decided to get back at Baboon and invited him over for dinner the next night. When Baboon arrives the following night, Tortoise explains that his hands are all dirty from walking on all fours and he needs to go to the river to wash his hands. When he returns, Tortoise tells him he must go wash again because they have become dirty again on the walk back from the river. After multiple times going back and forth from the river to Tortoise’s house, Baboon was hungry. But when he returned Tortoise explained that he took too long and all the food was gone!
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This book is a humorous, fun book for children to read. Yet, I am not sure about the message that it reinforces. In some ways, it can teach children that retaliation is necessary when you are taken advantage of. I agree more with the opposite message of: “an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.” Yet, despite the faulty message that it portrays this book shows it’s readers that some people can be gullible enough to fall for the same tricks that they previously pulled on someone else. If you don’t consider the message of the story, the book is enjoyable and employs a lot of imagery.
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The pictures of this book help develop and deepen understanding immensely. By including vibrant, colorful pictures of the events that are occurring, the reader is able to see each character’s struggle by noticing the sweat beads on their forehead. If I had read this book without also seeing the pictures, I would not understand why the Baboon had to keep going back and forth to the river to wash his hands because I would have imagined him walking on two feet. But, when the reader sees the pictures it is clear that the Baboon must walk on all fours to get around. Also, the illustrations do a good job of showing the setting of each character’s house while allowing the reader to feel more connected to the characters.
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