Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

When I started reading Anna Humphrey’s Megabat to my youngest last Friday, I was expecting it to take a while. Yes, the font is bigger and there are not infrequent illustrations, but still, 176 pages of reading aloud usually takes longer than a weekend. Here it is Monday, however, and I just finished it with her. (The cough I kept her home for on Friday has blossomed, she sounds more like a frog than a 6-year-old when she talks, and she’s possibly running a low grade fever.) I read a chunk of it to her yesterday while the rest of the family was at church, and then we finished it over lunch today, because why not? And I thought it was cute. (She says it’s a thumbs middle, although I don’t know that she’s feeling terribly enthusiastic about anything in her current state.) Daniel makes a good regular-kid protagonist, and a talking bat with a wonky way of speaking does a pretty good job of distracting him from the difficulties of moving. A loyal pigeon, a new friend next door, and her (possibly overly) evil younger brother round out the main characters in this simple book. It should appeal especially to animal fans or those struggling with moving, but the font size and illustrations also make this a good choice for the transitioning-to-longer-books-but-still-young-enough-to-be-overwhelmed crowd.

Okay, my sentence length and overall writing in this review leave something to be desired, but it took me forever to fall asleep last night, so I’m just going with it. Have a great day, everybody!