A Lovely Present by Andrew Davenport

A Lovely Present Reviews

• 
  S

  This book can be a great accompaniment to the TV series "In the night garden". If your child has watched or is watching the episodes and likes the shows, it can be a great motivating factor for the child to go through the book repeatedly.
  
  However, if the book is read without ever having seen the TV series, it can make reading this book really dull unless as the parent or story-teller you have a very fertile imagination and can, as they say, wing it. Even so, perhaps this hint will help: Wherever you see a bold text (other than the starting and ending lines of the story), those are the sounds each character makes in the TV shows. (Yes, the only sounds they ever seem to make orally is their own names, except the Pontipines who go "Mi-mi-mi-mi-mi" and because they are tiny and quite soft, a smaller font is used.)
  
  Now for the educational value of the book, it is a great book for teaching counting from 1 to 6 (or even 0 to 6; or up to 8 or 10 if you count the Pontipine children and parents) with beautiful and colourful illustrations and clear and sufficiently large text. If your child is ready for it, subtraction by 1 can also be included.
  
  Values that can be taught are friendship, generosity, kindness, compassion and sacrifice.
  
  For visual discrimination, there are sufficient illustrations of the homes of residences of some of the characters, among other things, as shown in the TV series. Some appear smaller as they are in the background and can be fun for your child to spot.
  
  This book was really fun for my two-year-old who treasures this book among most others. It is one of the first books he picks up in the morning and one of the last he goes through at night.
  
  My guess is, this book can be used for ages 1.5 to 4 without losing their interest though an older child may go through this faster.
  
  A warning, though, for conservative families is that the TV shows can be a little odd with characters kissing one another on the lips even though they are just friends. It appears two characters among them seem to kiss each other more frequently. The sexes of the characters are not easy to guess as pronouns never seem to be used. Still, Igglepiggle appears to be a male and Upsy Daisy, female. Only the Pontipine parents appear clearly male and female. If your child is two, s/he is hardly ever going to notice this and may just think that hugging and kissing are just ways of showing affection and friendship.
• 
  Capn

  This one has a lot going for it, though no images from the TV series (just illustrations). Counting on each page, giving away 1 stone at a time, or 3 stones at once to the Tombliboos. Simple subtraction and gift-giving. At the end, another kind gesture between friends shows a good example of getting along. Features the favourite characters of Igglepiggle, Upsy Daisy, the Tombliboos and the Pontipines, and of course Makka Pakka, the BEST character of all. Unequivocal on that point. XD But in all seriousness, probably the BEST INTG stand-alone story by content.