The Snake Who Came to Stay product reviews

We recently purchased this book at our local school book fair. We love the author Julia Donaldson, and have many of her picture books. She has a great way with words and seems to be able to spin such magical stories in such a few words. This is a chapter book, which I thought was a great follow on for my 7 year old daughter.

The cover of this book is absolutely engaging. It was the reason the book was purchased. The snake on the front really captured my daughter's imagination and she was very keen that we read the whole thing that night. So we did!

It is a pretty quick read. I think we knocked it out in about 30 minutes, though if she read it herself it would take her a week or a chapter a day. There are great illustrations throughout, breaking up the story. The words are written in a good size font for an early reader and there is plenty of white space as well.

Most of all the words are great. They don't feel too simple as an adult reading it. The story manages to stay engaging right throughout as well. And the language used is very natural. There are conversations between mum and daughter that I felt were just how we speak to each other. Easy and comfortable turns of phrase that just made it an altogether better read than many chapter books we have encountered.

We were so impressed with this book, we went back and bought the other Julia Donaldson chapter book at the sale as well. So to say we were sold, is an understatement. I would purchase this book again for friends quite happily.

I really enjoyed this book. I curled up with Miss Five and Miss Six and we read it in one sitting. Polly decides to have a holiday home to look after her friends and neighbours pets whilst they go on holiday. Polly's mum isn't so keen and then there is a comedy of errors culminating in Doris the snake escaping. I liked the humour in this book and I laughed all the way through it. Reminded me of the time we looked after the play centre mice and they escaped and got into our ceiling..... for months all we could hear was mice scurrying around at night until we finally "eliminated" them!

This book has great black and white illustration's and my girls enjoyed looking at the pictures. Miss Five especially has been taking this book to bed and "reading" it, so I think the pictures tell enough of the story.

This is a great chapter book and the paragraphs are very short so easy to read. I would definitely recommend this especially if your little Miss is planning to look after pets as it is a great basis to start discussion about the responsibility of pets.

I received this book to review along with Mr Birdsnest and the House next door, when I saw they were written by Julia Donaldson I knew that we would enjoy them. I wasn't wrong this book was a really good read. Like Mr Birdsnest and the House next door it was written in chapter format so was a bit longer a story than my son is used to but he enjoyed listening to it and looking at the pictures. My older girl really enjoyed it too and after I read it aloud she took it and read it to herself too.

It was a really sweet and funny story, I especially liked the parrot Charlie who copied everything even the phone ringing and the noises of the other pets. Polly makes a holiday home for pets and looks after a snake, a parrot, a guinea pig, and some fish. We have had guinea pigs so when the guinea pigs made the noises we knew what that noise would sound like.

In the story the snake gets out and Polly has to hunt for the lost snake. I thought it was a great story that will show children lessons of taking responsibility for pets and animals. Polly had accidentally left the snake's cage open and she got out. My own daughter had had her rabbit get out from doing this which luckily we managed to catch again so was quite topical really.

Overall we really loved this story and as a bonus there is a snakes and ladders game at the back of the book that my daughter found when she read the book and insisted we play a game, quite a cool little added extra I thought.