Rating: N/A
Category: Children's book
Review: 2/5 
John Paul Padilla has wonderful intentions with his book Johnny Big Ears, The Feel Good Friend. Unfortunately, good intentions are not always enough. I've been needing to review this book for a long time since I received it as a review copy but I've kept putting it off, mostly because I don't have a lot of good to say about it. The story is told in the voice of a 5 year old boy just going to kindergarten. You can guess from the title that he different from other kids because of his big ears. He gets teased but deals with it admirably and talks about how everyone is different and everyone is special. Sounds pretty good, huh? The idea is nice and the message is good but it is poorly written. It's supposed to be the voice of a five year old but it sounds like an adult trying to pretend he's five. It's also in the form of an easy-reader for 6-8 year olds with several illustrations scattered through the book (which aren't very good either). I think a picture book would have been much more effective and would have forced some much needed editting of the story.
Simply stated, my opinion is--good message, poorly executed. (By the way, on Amazon there are several very good reviews for this book, so I may be up in the night. But I don't think so. :) )
2 comments:
My husband has always had ears that stick out a lot and he was always embarrassed about them. Maybe he needed this book when he was younger. Instead, he would just grow his hair over his ears, and then people made fun of his hair!
Thanks for the review--I hadn't even heard of this one.
Whenever I read a book that I don't like I also check out the reviews because I'm afraid that I might be the only one that hated it. But I like to trust myself as well.
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