One day a boy feeds a little bird some breakfast. The next day, the bird returns and with it come two mice. They all return the day after that and they are joined by four squirrels. What happens if you keep doubling? What happens if all those numbers are animals and they all come along together? It doesn’t take long before the boy is joined by lots of hungry guests for breakfast.
This story would be a lovely introduction to the concept of doubling.
The book is funny in a really gentle way which is lovely to see. There is a bit of a misconception that funny means lots of jokes and bright colours and loud characters. The humour in this book comes from two questions: will all the animal breakfast guests return every day and how many guests will there be in the final picture. It is also in the illustrations and in seeing creatures such as birds and wolves and elephants dining together, and in the hectic nature of so many animals packed into one space. The reader is rewarded at the end with a beautiful fold out spread that shows the final day’s breakfast.
There’s lovely repetition throughout the book too of the numbers of animals that arrive from one day to the next. This would make it a lovely read aloud story with children, both for enjoyment and to enable children who can’t yet read to join in and to start to recognise words.
I love Richard Jones’s illustrations. In this book pale, muted colours are used, with sparing use of bolder bright colours that just pop out of the page and draw the eye towards objects such as the boy’s coat (a levely way to keep focus on the boy as being the character at the centre of the story. There is also sparing use of backgrounds, with plenty of white space, which works beautifully because it allows attention to keep focused on the animals and their breakfast related antics.
I can see this being a hit with teachers but also with children and parents as a bedtime story. It would make a lovely look ahead to the morning, with children heading off to bed hoping that one little bird will turn up for breakfast and start off their own animal adventure.
- The Biggest Breakfast by Richard Jones is available now from Simon and Schuster UK LTD. RRP. £12.99 (Sent for review. Thank you for my copy)
