Yesterday we went to the library and signed up for the Summer Reading Challenge – this year it’s called Team Read - and judging by the piles of books we all came out with, we’re really going to enjoy it. A new book in was Kanako Usui’s The Fantastic Mr Wani. Hooray! It’s been out since 2005 and I certainly knew of it before now but we’d never actually read it – and since it features in our current Big Picture Gallery, it couldn’t have appeared on the library shelves at a better time.
Mr Wani is a crocodile who is in a hurry to get to a party but the journey proves to be rather eventful. The story is helped on its way by expressive punctuation and font sizes and the illustrations are just superb. I love the way Usui draws the various animals’ eyes and there are lots of expressions for listening/ reading children to enjoy imitating – like the squashed mice with their tongues hanging out. There is a glorious moment where you just know the inevitable is about to happen as you turn the book end on to see Mr Wani hurtling down from the sky over a sledge carrying three penguins.
That is the other lovely thing about this story. It completely enters the spirit of young children’s imaginations – the journey is totally matter-of-fact in its acceptance of mice carrying umbrellas, balloons attached to the signpost pointing to Town and then the three penguins sledging down a snowy hillside, followed by Mr Wani’s “Bump! into Mr Elephant’s rump” (a very satisfying rhyme that I can see finding its way into the family lexicon) and bouncing from prickly hedgehog to prickly hedgehog through the Froggies’ door and so into the middle of the party. There’s an extra little surprise at the end as well…
This is a great readaloud, with lots of potential for “audience participation”! Kanako Usui also has a great Japanese/ English bilingual blog – well worth a visit.
