A Summery Saturday Morning

I love this book. A woman and four kids - two white, two black, it's not sure how everybody is related, but that's fine - go walking to the beach with two dogs. Who chase *everything*. Eventually, they chase the geese, and... well... Let's just say that in real life, geese are vicious creatures that DO NOT BACK DOWN, and they bite, too! It's very bouncy, nothing really scary happens (not even the geese), and the artwork is well done. For more fun, try singing it to "Mulberry bush" or "I saw three ships".

We've read this book to our 1.5 year old twins since they were babies. It has become their favourite book, and if given a choice will be the book singled out.It has a clear story line, peaks to a climax and finishes with a satisfying ending. The story is light hearted with lovely images to fill their heads with sweet dreams.The rhyming verses captured their attention right from the time they were babies, rolling off the tongue easily and quickly enough to keep them spellbound. Nowadays, they also love identifying all the objects from the wonderful illustrations (the more you look, the more you find). All we have to do to get them into bed each night is to start chanting the verses (which we quickly learnt by heart) and they'll fly into bed ready for their book:"We take the dogs down the wiggly track,The wiggly track, the wiggly track,One dog's white and the other dog's black,On a summery Saturday morning.Bad dogs, bad dogs chase the cat,Chase the cat, chase the cat,One dog's thin and the other dog's fat,On a summery Saturday morning..." etcOur twins give a running commentary both while the story is being read and when reading it alone, pointing to each thing that they know: "dog, woof woof""cat, meow meow""bubba" (baby)"du" (shoe)"bla" (dirty feet in the mud)"one, two,..." (counting the baby geese)There's not many children's books that I'd recommend (there's a lot of poor ones out there) but this one I have no hesitation over.

.Margaret Mahy's latest story beautifully captures the simple joys of a group of four children and their two dogs as they head down to the beach on a summer's morning. The format of the book is particularly effective with clear and bright double page illustrations ( by Selina Young) each with a quatrain of verse. The story and pictures are enchantingly interlaced , with the rhythm and rhyme reminiscent of "Here we go 'round the Mulberry Bush". All is not sweetness and light however. There is a showdown between the dogs and mother goose and her seven goslings. The annoyed geese chase our friends back up the hill before they even have a chance to play on the beach. The moral of the story is .... if you want to walk in peace don't let your dogs chase the geese !

Mum takes the kids and the dogs down the track to the beach, past the man mowing his lawns and the woman hanging out the washing, just as you would on a summery Saturday morning in NZ. I love the rhyming and the repetition, and so does my daughter (aged 4. I can see why this book won the NZ Post Children's Book Award in 1999. The ultimate compliment comes from my daughter, who chooses this book again and again, for her own "reading aloud sessions" to selected lucky toys; she can recite each page off by heart. Everyone knows it's the parent who does the reading who needs to be won over since they're the one with the cash to buy books, and this one has definitely warmed my heart.