Review by Leyla -- Farmer Beau's Farm by Kathleen Geiger

[Leyla]

[Following is a volunteer review of "Farmer Beau's Farm" by Kathleen Geiger.]

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4 out of 4 stars

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Farmer Beau’s Farm is written by Kathleen Geiger and illustrated by Adam Musk. It is a children's book written with the intention to teach children good values, and to help them learn to read. The author does not indicate the age group that she intended to target. However,  the pictures included in the book are clear and very pretty, suitable for attracting the attention of children between the ages 4 years to 12 years old. The kindle version comes equipped with a word wise feature, which defines words which might be unfamiliar to the child, or may be considered a big word, such as, ‘’romping‘’.

As I have done before with previous books, I read it to my 4 year old daughter before completing the review. She was bored within minutes as the pictures were far apart and the story was too long for her age group. As an aside, for parents teaching their children to read or just encouraging good reading practices, you could try reading the book in parts to your young child.

A problem I had, was that the pictures came at the end of each scene, so there were moments when several pictures came back to back. This also meant that there were many pages with just writing. This does not take away from the storyline which will appeal to children.  The pictures could be placed on the same pages with the writing. This will save on paper used to print the book, as well as, maintaining the reader's attention longer.

The author’s overuse of hyphens to divide words at the end of a line, when the word could not fit on the remainder of the line,  was distracting. The writing style could have been changed from centered to left indent or be creative.

At the end we are told that the author made stuffed animals for her granddaughters. The use of stuffed animals will help keep the attention of the younger children.

Farmer Beau’s Farm is a story about Farmer Beau and his wife Bamma’s love for nature and animals. Farmer Beau and Bamma live on a farm where they cultivate the land. They spent their free time on the patio and gardening. One day while in the garden, Farmer Beau came across 6 kittens. Bamma fell in love with them and wanted to keep them. But all left except 1,  who Bamma called Kailey. Soon after Kailey made friends with Sammy Rabbit. The two became best of friends, and became jealous and concerned when they heard that a new animal was coming on the farm. Jealous that the new comer may take up all the attention. And concerned that people would make fun of Farmer Beau and Bamma. They later learned that being different is not always a bad thing. And that you can be very good friends despite your differences.

I thought that the lesson behind the book and the pictures were good and relevant to teaching young children. There were no grammatical errors. Though there is room for improvement with the position of the pictures and the style of writing, I rated this book 4 out of 4 .

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Farmer Beau's Farm
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Like Leyla's review? Post a comment saying so!

[kandscreeley]

Seems like a very nice children's book. I love the cover, and I'm sure children need to hear the message contained in this book. Thanks for the review.

[Leyla]

Thank you Kandscreeley. The lesson contained is very important. I hope it reaches the children.

[GPM]

It is a metaphor for a tale about acceptance, the dangers of prejudice, open minds and generosity of spirit. A positive review!

[Uwe Neufeld]

It's been ages since I read my last childrens book, but I find this book well suited for the younger ones. Thank you for the review!