RALPHINA, THE ROLY-POLY Written and Illustrated by Claudia Chandler

Many, many years ago, my mother first introduced me to the little grayish creatures we called Roly-Polies. I literally spent hours as a little one searching these little creatures out and playing with them. You can imagine my delight when I received this truly remarkable little book for children on the subject of one of my childhood friends.

Ralphina, a Roly-Poly lives in a nice garden with her mother. She is lonely and wants to make friends with the little boy who lives in the house. This is a very simple little story of friendship and at the same time is a wonderful nature lesson for children, and I must admit, adults too. The book is targeted for children from 4 to 8 but with this particular work I should think that the age limit could be expanded somewhat in either direction.

This work has a lot going for it. Not only is the story delightfully sweet, it is well written and completely understandable. The art work is some of the best I have seen in this year’s crop of children’s books, with bright bold colors that are truly eye catching. You can tell by the quality and detail of the illustrations that the author certainly enjoys what she does, and this shows on every page throughout. The book is absolutely perfect for reading to a group of children as the pictures are bold and go with the text perfectly. They can be easily be seen at a distance. As a matter of fact, like all children’s books I review, this one was kid tested. I read it to a kindergarten class (a group of 23 very hardcore literary critics, I can tell you) and to a class of first graders who where even more sophisticated in their reading taste. I received rave reviews from both groups and in fact was asked for a second reading. This one would also make a perfect bed time read, or a read from grandma or grandpa’s lap, for that matter.

In addition, the author has been rather sneaky and has actually inserted many wonderful facts about these amazing little critters. The children are actually getting a very good natural history lesson and will come away from the experience much wiser in the ways of nature. I suspect that a lot of parents and teachers will too, even though they might not want to admit it.

So we have a book that teaches the children about friendship, about being ones own self and a story of gentleness and acceptance. We also have a very good biology lesson and the author has also slipped in a neat little lesson about the colors of the rainbow, which not only covers what a rainbow is, but gives a very nice little art lesson as to colors. While the book is 32 pages long, it is the type of story that you can read over and over and over again to your child without getting absolutely glassy eyed and sick of the thing. I noted that each time I went through it that I spied some new detail in the paintings that I had missed before. Really, what more could you want?

This is a hard covered book and the binding appears to be very good. The pages are of glossy paper. This is type of book that can stand up to rough handling and still be in good enough shape to pass on to the next generation.

I strongly suspect that we will be seeing much more from this author down the road. I do highly recommend this work.

Considerations :::
Ralphina has not been rated by the Accelerated Reading people. You should assume that the book is to be read-to children.