"An entertaining Goldilocks style story as a toad sets out to find his perfect home."
A mummy toad laid her eggs in a drain, and while most of her tadpoles are happy there, Alan isn’t. It’s dirty and too cramped. He wants his own space and peace and quiet. When he gets big enough he heads out to find his own home, in a goldilocks-esque search for somewhere just right.
The rhyming of the writing makes the story flow really well, it would be a nice story to read aloud with young children. Through the images young readers will get a bit of an introduction to the growth stages of a tadpole, and as Alan searches for a home they’ll get an idea of the kinds of places toads may like to live. There are funny moments as Alan’s choices of home are proven to be not quite right. I also liked the way it’s written from Alan’s toad perspective, the "enormous pink thing” intruding on his life is entertaining phrasing, while the images leave no doubt about what’s being described. It also subtly hints to young readers how much bigger humans are than toads, and how scary we could be and the care that’s needed when interacting with smaller creatures.
I think A Home for Alan is an entertaining story that works on many levels. It offers a fun hunt for the perfect home that young readers can enjoy while also quietly educating young readers about toads, their habitats and interacting with nature.
| Suitable For: | |
| Primary Genre | Indie Author Books |
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A slightly confused and muddled mummy toad can’t find a suitable place to lay her precious toad-spawn! She spies an over-flowing drain and there, finally lays her eggs.
After a while, the drain becomes laden with bouncy, bulging toad-spawn and hundreds of tiny tadpoles are born! All seem excited with life and their new home, except for one little tadpole…
Alan is not happy! The drain is too dirty, cramped and noisy… all the things he can’t stand, so while waiting for his legs, arms and lungs to develop, he forms a plan to escape to his own quiet, clean home. The only problem is he doesn’t know where it is yet?
As soon as he is big enough, he packs his suitcase and begins his journey to find a new place of his own…
The LoveReading4Kids Editorial Team have read and reviewed A Home for Alan and determined it is suitable for children aged 5-6 years old
A Home for Alan features in the following genres: Featured Books for 5+ readers, Indie Author Books , Indie Books We Love, Animal Stories, Recommendations, Children's and Young Adult Fiction, Children’s, Teenage and Educational
A Home for Alan is available in Paperback
A Home for Alan was written by Laura Knight and published by Troubador Publishing
A Home for Alan has 32 pages
£8.09
