Maisy's Pool

This one is a lot of fun and honestly one of my favorite Maisy's. In the story Tallulah and Maisy pull out their wading pool only to find that it has a hole. They soon patch it up only to have another problem crop up when Eddie comes along to play. You see it's a a size 1 pool, and Eddie's a size 2 elephant which means that there's no room for Maisy and Tallulah. The solution had me smiling and my small-fry audience giggling. TALKING POINTS::: Maisy's Pool has the same bright colorful artwork that typifies this series from Lucy Cousins. Kids will love seeing Maisy and the gang overcome adversity. And they'll laugh and giggle when they see that Eddie fills the ENTIRE pool! Pam T~ one of the moms at BooksforKids-reviews

There's no tab pulling or flap lifting in this 1999 Maisy book, but author Lucy Cousins spins a surprisingly exciting tale for Maisy. The story involves Maisy, a yellow bird with a blue hair bow ("Tallulah"), and a large elephant ("Eddie") wearing orange swimming trunks with a blue and white daisy pattern. These three want to take a dip in an inflatable swimming pool on a hot day. However, not only does the inflatable spring a leak, but its not big enough for the two smaller animals when Eddie climbs in. The animals find their way to a happy and satisfying resolution. Lucy Cousins' illustrations add immensely to her story's appeal. Using rich, vivid colors, she draws her characters wearing toddler clothing--and big smiles. "Maisy's Pool" is 21 pages long. Each of the 10 two-page spreads (there's a one-page biographical piece on Cousins after the story) has large-font, bold text on a white background on the left side, and bright, cheerful gouache pictures on the right. Recommended!

If you are the parent of a young child, you probably know who Maisy is. She's a mouse with a duck, a squirrel, an elephant, and a crocodile for friends. Why the crocodile isn't trying to eat the others is beyond me, but that's life in Maisy's workd.Both of my daughters love the Maisy books; there's something about their simple stories and colorful pictures that even appeals to adults. The books are short and easy to read. But, the stories are never obnoxiously simplistic, like so many other books for small children.It's a hot summer day and Maisy pulls out her pool to cool off. But she runs into a few problems when she finds a leak in the pool and then has her friend Eddie the Elephant decide to sit in it. Will Maisy ever be able to cool off?

I've read this book so many times to my 15-month-old, I can recite it from memory! He started going nuts for it around the time he turned one; that's when he wanted a little more of a story line. This book and the other three in the group (Maisy's Bedtime, Maisy Dresses Up, and Maisy Makes Gingerbread) are one step up from the one-picture-and-one-word per page kinds of books for babies, but not so high up that they start having way too much text per page. A typical page in this book is "Maisy and Talullah are feeling hot." Just one or two simple sentences and one wonderful bright Lucy Cousins illustration per page-spread; ten page-spreads total.