Home > Categories > Books > Kids - General > I am Not a Worm! review
"Hello, little worm."
"I am not a worm."
"Are you sure?"
"Yep."
And indeed, he's right, he's not a worm. So what is he? And is it a good thing to be? Scott Tulloch has created a hilarious dialogue between an unlikely pair, culminating in a dramatic twist at the end.
Product reviews...
This book caught my eye for review cause it said on the cover "I'm not a worm" I got interested because if its not a worm what is it? It looked like a worm to me on the front cover page. I gave it a quick look though before letting the children loose with the book, I noticed it looked like a comic book with speech bubbles everywhere and small cartoons for each little bit.
It goes back and forward with the two characters in the books auguring with each other and the "worm" getting annoyed with the other guy, its pretty funny and very very easy to read. It has awesome pictures and everything tells a story even though the only words on the page are in speech bubbles, you got the idea of the story very fast. The end was a bit of a surprise and I never thought it was going to end they way it did but my daughter and I enjoyed it. My 6 year old could read this no problems and my 4 year old tried very hard but he got the idea of the story adn got excited when he found out what the "worm" actually was.
This book is a little more than I would actually pay for it though, as it is paperback and pretty much a comic book with only a few words on each page. Overall it was enjoyed and would be good for the young readers to learn about the punctuation as there are bits you shout and stop, have to ask a question etc so it does help with the thinking process.
This book looked like a lot of fun as I was flipping through it a few days ago. My eldest daughter asked me to read it to her just as I flicked to the last two pages. I was a bit shocked by what I saw there and so I just said to her "I will read it, but first I need to prepare you for something". So I showed her. Her jaw dropped in shock, but then she brushed it off.
The illustrations in this book are cool. They are bold and colourful and have a watercolour appearance to them. The characters are cartoonish, and the speech bubbles and comic strip feel to the layout adds to that. I got my daughter to read as much of it herself as she could the second time through, and she did really well.
It's a nice quick read. The conversation throughout the book is quite humourous, and I found it easy to add funny voices in. There are one or two wordless pages in there too, which allowed us to talk about life cycles and transformations. My youngest just loved the colour and the funny looking creatures. She was very much drawn to each page as she flipped through it.
As to the end, it's very much black humour. I think for my eldest, knowing what was coming helped her prepare for the ending. But other children who are more sensitive may find it difficult as far as endings go. I know plenty of kids though who would get a kick out of it and take it light-heartedly as the author intended.
Price wise it's on the higher end for a paperback picture book, but it is a decent size. The cover has a really nice yellow matt finish with the speech bubble and main character in raised glossy print. In my opinion it's priced reasonably.
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