Reviewer Barbara C.
Burgess: Barbara is the author of The Magic Manuscript: The Nine
Companions. She holds a BA honors degree from McGill University and
also did graduate studies in medieval English literature at McGill. Barbara is an English teacher, freelance editor and writer. She
has contributed articles, judged in writing competitions, and written
a health column for various magazines.
You can Follow HERE for her YA fantasy novel The Magic Manuscript: the Nine Companions.
Follow Here To Learn More About Barbara.
Authors: Stan and Jan Berenstain
Illustrator: Mike Berenstain.
Publisher: Oceanhouse Media, Inc.
ASIN: B0092WAW28
Authors: Stan and Jan Berenstain
Illustrator: Mike Berenstain.
Publisher: Oceanhouse Media, Inc.
ASIN: B0092WAW28
Nothing Ever Happens at the South Pole is a delightful book by Stan Berenstain and Jan Berenstain, and illustrated by Mike Berenstain. Children and adults will certainly find themselves smiling and laughing as they read it. The tale of a young penguin looking for novel experiences in the South Pole will captivate any reader who follows his quest for adventure. The penguin’s diary has the inscription: ‘Write in Me! Something happens every day. Write it down right away.’ The fact that he is surrounded by fascinating and even dangerous creatures, such as the walrus, adds to the humour of the book, for the young penguin remains somewhat oblivious to his exciting surroundings.
Oceanhouse media has made
the book available as an app in which the text and beautifully
coloured illustrations come to life. There are three functions to
this Oceanhouse Media digital book: “Auto play” and “Read to
Me” (in which the words light up as you read them), and “Read It
Myself” (a more traditional mode of reading). Wonderful sound
effects are embedded in the book. For instance, if you click on any
one of the “stepping stones” that illustrate the phrase “Stepping
stones made of ice,” you can hear water sounds. When you click on a
drawing of our young protagonist penguin, the word “penguin”
appears and you hear him squawk and squeal. This is a fantastic
feature for children learning how to read. There are all kinds of
words which a child can learn by reading this book, such as “igloo,”
“pencil,” “walrus,” “chair,” “hook,” and “ear
muffs.”
I read this book on my friend’s iPad. She commented: “I’d love this book if I were kid. See, things have come forward since we were kids. We didn’t have this much fun.” There’s also a lot of internal rhyme in the story, something that is very pleasing to the ear. When I finished reading, hearing, and experiencing the story, I thought of a famous quote by an English poet, Sir Philp Sidney. His words, written hundreds of years ago, struck me as particularly relevant to this beautiful book by the Berenstain family: “Poetry is … a speaking picture--with this end, to teach and delight.”
