Little Joe and the Big Rain by Mike Darcy
Publisher: Lilbuda Creations
Genre: Children’s (0 – 6 y.o.), Contemporary
Rating: 5 Stars
Reviewed by AstilbeEvery great adventure starts with fly soup and ends with a new best friend, right?
When Little Joe’s froggy friend Hopper invites him over for a nice bowl of fly soup, they embark on Little Joe’s first-ever adventure through the wilderness! There, he’ll meet lots of woodland creatures and even make a surprising friend. Join these two unlikely explorers in this debut book Little Joe and the Big Rain.
This amusing animal story will delight young readers of all ages! It can teach children clever problem-solving, show how small acts of kindness can help you make unexpected friends, and instill in them the priceless treasure of curiosity. Entertaining for both kids and parents, it makes a fantastic bedtime story and a fun tale for elementary schoolers venturing into longer picture books.
Friendship is forever.
I loved how much detail was included in this picture book! Instead of having a sentence or two per page to read, there were a few paragraphs to enjoy instead which left plenty of space for me to get to know Little Joe and Hopper well as they explored the wilderness, discovered fun plot twists, and had all sorts of adventures. What made this even better were the occasional references to human culture and nature that older kids or adults are more likely to understand which added extra layers of meaning and would be fun to explain to little ones once they’re old enough to wonder what certain terms meant, for example. These details weren’t necessary in order to understand the main storyline. They were simply fun additions if a reader picks up on them.
Mr. Darcy trusted his audience to figure out the message without being directly told what they should learn from it. Instead, he allowed his characters to go on an adventure and see what might be waiting for them out in the world. This is the sort of writing that makes rereading so much fun as certain scenes feel a little different the second or third or tenth time around once one knows what is about to happen and can look for any hints about the future in the early scenes. No, I can’t possibly give any hints about what these characters find. It’s so much more fun to let the plot move where it needs to go and not have any idea what might happen next.
One of my favorite aspects of the storyline had to do with how Little Joe and Hopper’s expectations played out once it began raining and they couldn’t have the fly soup they were originally planning to make. Life is full of twists and turns for everyone, after all, but kindness and hope are two fantastic tools for figuring out how to react when something surprising or disappointing happens.
Little Joe and the Big Rain was heartwarming.
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