The Whole Caboodle product reviews

I work in early childhood with under 5's so I like to find books which are full of humor and have lots of interesting pictures to keep children engaged. The Whole Caboodle has both of these things! It has wonderful pastel illustrations which draw the kids eyes, they had a great time pointing out lots of different things in the pictures. Every time we went through the book they seemed to find more and more things to point out.

The words are delightful for children with loads of tongue twisting and made up words. I'm not sure if the kids were laughing at the words or me trying to say them half of the time. Either way every time we read the book we all end up in fits of laughter. With some of the older children they had fun trying to say the words and then making up there own names for the dogs as well.

The book is very well written and illustrated they blend well together and tell a lovely wee story of a dog waking up his owner keen on a walk to the park. Throughout the story he guesses who he may see at the park that day. Interwoven into the story is a bit of numeracy as well as each page increases the number of dogs we will see. After reading the story we often have in depth discussion about who or what we may see if we go for a walk to the park. Any book that promotes lots of conversation is a winner with me. It's such a delightful book to read over and over again.

What a hilarious book!! The made up words, the entertaining story and the lively illustrations all add up to a story which has us all in fits of laughter and keeps Miss 4 interested until the very end. Reading this book for the first time, and admittedly second, third and fourth time, was a struggle in pronouncing the lingo but what fun it was! Fuzzy-wuzzy grizzly bear, tootsy-wootsy fizzyjig, hurdie-gurdie whirlgig, it's a bit like a challenge to get these sentences right and to get quicker and quicker in saying them.

The pastel illustrations played perfectly with the story, and didn't over power the gibberish of the words. The story is told through the words (albeit half are made up) but also the illustrations so tie in nicely and work hand in hand. The story starts with a dog trying to wake it's owner because he wants to go for a walk. They wonder who they might see on their walk and run through many different breeds of dogs (mixed breeds or made up...I'm not sure!) such as Goldendoodles and Spitzoodles. Counting plays a big part in the story, and writing the numbers as words as opposed to numerically helps with the sounding out of numbers and word to number recognition.

A fun and friendly story that we love to read and happy to read every day.