Maisy Drives - Lucy Cousins > Reviews > Why Alexander Loves Books

Author's product rating:   

Would you listen to it again?	Absolutely
Story	Good
Characters	Outstanding
Listenability	Once you start it, you won't be able to switch it off!

Advantages:	Great learning tool for children aged 6 months +
Disadvantages:	Alexander, can we look at another book now? !

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Alexander’s favourite book in the whole wide world is Maisy Drives, by Lucy Cousins. At the discerning age of 15 months he has let us know, without a shadow of a doubt, that this book is Number One on his reading list. And how do we know? The evidence is presented in a display of Alexander-books artfully rearranged on the floor, whilst he sits in the middle, engrossed in Maisy Drives.

Maisy Drives is an A5-sized, car-shaped, brightly coloured board book, making it an ideal introduction for a young baby (or toddler, as is now the case!) to the world of literature. We think it’s also pretty tasty because it’s been chewed a bit! Alexander was 6 months old when he received this book from his Godmother, and it has helped to open up his world; to give him his first understanding of vehicles, animals, colours, noises and movement, and that reading is fun.

So, who is Maisy? Maisy is a little mouse with a white face, a pink body and very brightly coloured clothes. She has a little smile that makes her look cute, friendly and fun. Maisy has fun adventures and experiences with her friends and tells us about them in her books. Maisy Drives is, as the title suggests, about objects that can be driven, or ridden, or flown.

On the front cover of this book, Maisy is driving a car and is accompanied by a crocodile, who is waving from the back seat. The car is bright yellow and has big grey wheels. Maisy’s top is red and green striped and the crocodile is wearing a red vest. Children are drawn to bright, primary colours, and Alexander is no exception to the rule.

So what does Maisy drive? She drives a train, a tractor, a car, a fire engine, an aeroplane, a tricycle and a bus. What noises do they make? Remember at this point that your enjoyment of the book will reflect in your child’s, so the more noise you can make, the more fun it is, and the more your child wants to read. Here goes…. The book says, for example: "Toot toot!" (train) and "Rattle, squeak, rattle, squeak!" (tricycle). My tricycle is in desperate need of some TLC and WD40 so it more often says something along the lines of "eek eek". I do have to say that my husband makes excellent vehicle noises, where as mine are more basic, but I am probably louder!

Alexander’s favourite page is "Maisy likes driving her fire engine. Nee-nah, nee-nah!". The fire engine is bright red, with a big yellow hose on the side, a ladder on the roof, a blue light and grey wheels. Maisy and squirrel are wearing yellow fire helmets. Alexander can relate this image to his toy fire engine that "nee-nahs" around the house, to the fire engines we see about town, and now to the firemen that visited our home on 1 February 2003. Also on this page is a black cat, which we have named Whiskie. Whiskie is actually one of my parent’s cats and he’s black, so Alexander has been able to associate aspects of cat-life from the book to the real thing, ie: stroking the cat and meowing. These two examples illustrate how we have related the objects on the page to real life.

Whilst an objective of board books such as Maisy Drives is to introduce babies and toddlers to the concept of reading, it’s also an introduction to vehicles, animals, colours, noises and movement. Vehicles make noises and so do animals. Vehicles come in different colours and so do animals. Vehicles move and so do animals. The more you can bring this book to life, the more your child - and you - understand the pleasure of reading. I think most parents would agree it’s a fascinating job to watch how our children learn, begin to understand, to recognise, to put together the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle that is life. Thanks to this book, Alexander is into playing with toy vehicles, especially ones with wheels, and we always make a big thing of looking at moving cars when we go shopping. The concept of "thing" has become "car-wheels-moves".

This book is available at all good bookshops and costs £3.99, making it excellent value for money. There is a whole Maisy book series, as well as videos (Alexander likes them too). The publisher is Candlewick Press and can be found at http://www.candlewick.com/cat.asp.