Book Review: Does A Kangaroo Have A Mother Too?
Eric Carle and animals don’t disappoint
Contents
Who is Eric Carle?
Eric Carle has been producing children’s books since 1963 (almost 60 years!) and has several popular picture books and some books are available in over 60 different languages. His books are praised to be intuitive and innovative little stories with his vibrant and instantly recognisable collage art style. These books have inspired a generation of readers to use their reading as a platform to explore the world!
Reading with children
This book hardly warrants an introduction but I’ll give a brief summary. With each new animal, a question is asked: “Does a _____ have a mother, too?” And with every question comes a reply: “Yes! A _____ has a mother. Just like I do and you do, too." If you’ve read the English version, you’ll be familiar with this.
In Chinese, it’s more like: “__也有妈妈吗?” (__yě yǒu mā mā ma?) “有! 就像你有我也有。“ (yǒu ! __yǒu mā mā , jiù xiàng nǐ yǒu wǒ yě yǒu .)
The animals go in this order: kangaroo (袋鼠 dài shǔ), lion (狮子 shī zi), giraffe (长颈鹿 cháng jǐng lù), penguin (企鹅 qì é), swan (天鹅 tiān é), fox (狐狸 hú lí), dolphin (海豚 hǎi tún), sheep (绵羊 mián yáng), bear (狗熊 gǒu xióng), elephant (大象 dà xiàng), and monkey (猴子 hóu zi). Then it rounds off with a sweet little exclamation about mother animals loving baby animals!
Repeating questions and answer formats make this easy to read with younger ages, and the boardbook means it’s pretty chunky and chewable (so toddler-friendly!).
Tips, artwork and engagement
Eric Carle uses a lot of repetition to familiarise children with a particular sentence and changes only the animals so that the names of animals are highlighted, making it easier for them to learn. The repetition also makes this easy to read for new learners - you’ll find that, after some iterations, toddlers will be able to recite the book themselves (albeit with varied levels of accuracy).
With babies, reading the words and pointing to the images will help them associate the sound of the words with what they see on the page. They might not be repeating after you, but the more you say and the more consistent you are with it, the better.
With toddlers and younger children, we’d be putting greater emphasis on their engagement with the book. Making them perhaps fill in the gap (or try to) before saying the animal name is one way to do this. You could do it in question and answer style, where a parent and child can alternate in reading aloud.
This is great also for those in a bilingual environment, purely because Eric Carle books are so easily available in the UK at very affordable prices (both new and pre-loved). That way, you can have the same content and same vocabulary but in two different languages!
It’s needless to say that Eric Carle art is beautiful, because many are familiar with it already. His art is unique and much loved - not much else to be said!
Other thoughts
In true Eric Carle style, the pictures you get are bright, bold and vibrant. The animals are definitely still recognisable - but his art style might raise eyebrows when it comes to realism. Some may consider the colours and shapes of the animals being a little abstract, others will love this style to bits.
For those who love Eric Carle but want some real representations, we’ve always found that using life-like models or photographs of animals are a good way of overcoming this. We love the Schleich models in particular - sturdy quality and convincing representations - but anything will do, even a printed photograph.
Ba Ba Lion might not be in the book but we added him in!
There’s also the lack of ‘Dad’ in the book, so you don’t get to see male variants of any animals in the book. But this can be fixed by opening up to play with the models or photographs or colouring pages etc. Remember, books can be treated like a platform! Just choose to suit your needs.
Conclusion
Does A Kangaroo Have A Mother, Too? is a classic Eric Carle book told with classic Eric Carle art style and vibrancy. With many books of his, the art style is far from realistic, but some will love it like that. There are many workarounds, and lots of activities can be taken from it. We really love the repetitive sentence/question structures - it opens up the opportunity to learn new vocabulary and gain confidence in reading aloud.
Do you have Eric Carle books in English already? Maybe you’d like some in Chinese? If you’re looking to buy, we currently sell Does A Kangaroo Have A Mother, Too? and various other Eric Carle books, so follow the links below!
Does a Kangaroo Have A Mother, Too?: buy here
Eric Carle collection: browse here
Let us know what you think! We’d love to hear your thought, ideas and activities!
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