Hiding Phil product reviews

This is a lovely story about some children and an elephant. The children find the elephant, his name is Phil, and want to keep him. They take him home, but must hide him from their parents, because everyone knows that their parents wont let them keep an elephant should they bring one home ;) lol So attempt to hide Phil the elephant they do, and what happens when their parents do discover Phil?

This story is lovely, it is simply written with the young reader in mind. Easy to follow and easy to understand. Not to crowded with words, but a perfect mix of story and picture. All important features of childrens picture books. The illustrations are gorgeous, Phil of course being my favourite, very appealing to children (of all ages). Phil is such a cute elephant that it is easy to see why the children wanted to take him home lol

I do not often get kids books with dust jackets, as they often get ruined, but I have noticed that most of the kids books I have received with dust jackets are gorgeous heart warming stories that children just adore. I did feel perhaps the RRP was slightly more than I would pay BUT as the book is hard cover and appealing I would still pay that price for it. It is afterall a lovely book :)

Hiding Phil is a funny book loved by all the adults and preschoolers I have shared it with. It is a very simple idea: The children find an elephant and want to take it home to keep but they have to hide it from Mum and Dad. The problem is how do you hide an elephant? One of my friend's commented to me (and I agree) the author/'illustrator has been clever and come up with ideas we would never have dreamed of.

According to the dust jacket this is Eric Barclay's fourth book as an illustrator but the first he has written. He has done a brilliant job. I looked up his website to see if I knew his other books (which I don't) but I did find out that he is very good eye candy so I would happily go to any talk or book signing he was having in New Zealand.

He has written Hiding Phil using just speech bubbles which the children love as they know immediately who is speaking. It also means that much of the story is portrayed in the body language of the characters. The text is very simple and I found myself using a lot of expression when I was reading it. The children caught onto the story very quickly and were joining in on the second reading. My 3.5 and 5 year olds have heard it 5 or 6 times now and can read most of the book themselves now. It is so cute to see them using the expression too.

Phil is the cutest elephant with huge eyes and a tiny hat. He loves playing with the kids.The illustrations really appeal to the young kids and thankfully being a hardcover it will last a while with them handling it. I only hope after reading this book my children don't get the idea that they can sneak a pet into the house that I will be fine with keeping it. If you are reading this girls I can tell you it is not going to happen.