What Are You Supposed To Be? product reviews

I was quite excited to get to review this book What are you supposed to be. My 4 year old in particular was terribly excited when she saw the book arrive and wanted to read it immediately. At first when looking at the book my 4 year old told me it was about the big bad wolf and maybe that was little red riding hood. I loved that the simplistic pictures on the front page had already sparked her imagination and made her wonder about what the book was going to be about.

I must admit on reading the book the first time around with my daughter I was a bit confused as to the story line and what the aim of the book was. But once we read it a second time and actually slowed down and looked at the pictures more it became a bit clearer. My 4 year old found most of the pictures quite funny as the wolf was doing a lot of things that aren't very stereotypical of a wolf in other story books. She enjoyed pointing this out and then questioning as to why he was doing it. Was a great way to lead into a discussion with her about how it is ok to be different and not the same as everyone else.

I think once we had read the book and understood it a bit more it was a really good read. I like the morals of the book and I love the clear cut pictures that make you use your imagination.

What are you supposed to be? Well really what are you supposed to be? Reminds me of fancy dress as a kid or playing make believe with the questions from other children. That is the thing with childhood and imagination you can be what ever you want to be and may not be what others are expecting from your outside appearance. So a wolf is big and bad and blows down little pigs houses and howls at the moon? Or does he? Who really knows I guess, the wolf in this book is certainly not big and bad, and there was no huffing and puffing going on.

What are you supposed to be is a really clever book taking a look at things from a different perspective. The little girl in the book is most put out that the wolf is not big and bad and doesn't have a fearsome growl when instead he plays the violin and eats salad! Salad! You're kidding a wolf that eats salad? Shouldn't wolves be eating grandma's with all those big teeth they have? The wolf in this book though does not want to be big and bad and despite the little girls attempts is happy with things just the way they are.

What are you supposed to be is a great laugh and me and my 5 year old were both in hysterics as we read the story aloud. My 5 year old decided the wolf was very cool and he didn't want the wolf to be big and bad. We see that everyone prefers the wolf just the way he is and it is awesome to see a book that celebrates and encourages children to be who they want to be not what others expect them to be. A little cliche but the age old saying you can't judge a book by it's cover came to mind as we see everything the little girl thought a wolf should be were not the case.

I thoroughly enjoyed this story and loved the illustrations that also caused some laughter as we saw the wolf doing some truly hillarious things for a wolf, definitely a great talking point about expectation versus reality and why it is important to get to know people.