Anagranimals And The Wishing Tree

 

Anagranimals And The Wishing Tree is a new book by Leith Moghli and illustrated by Ian King. It tells the story of animals living in the mysterious land of Pogo Bogo, especially a group of 6 friends - a giraffe, a pig, a hippo, a lion, a rhino and an elephant. 

Through a series of events the group of 6 friends 'wish' for the body parts of different animals e.g. parrot wings and zebra legs, and then find themselves able to mix and match their new body parts with the others in their group of 6. The illustrations are bright and bold and colourful, and my boys really enjoy spotting the different animal parts and discussing what specific abilities each animal will have gained from the swap.

The story is a bit abstract, but it introduces the ideas very well and is easily understood by both the 3 and 5 year olds. The 5 year old isn't able to read any of this book himself yet, but the way the anagranimal 'names' are written is broken down and will be very easy for him to pick up in only a couple of months time e.g Hippo-Croco-Puss. 

This is an almost A4 book with an impressive 32 pages, and it is the initial book in a proposed series with an accompanying website (which isn't quite completed as I type) www.Anagranimals.com.

I think this book is ideal for it's suggested age range of 5+. It promotes discussion about the world and the animals within it. It introduces a few animals your child might not have come across and my 5 year old finds it very humourous and loves looking at the back/front inside covers where there are a host of mix and match animals to discover. 7/10

Anagranimals is available as a Kindle download from Amazon for only £1.29 and will be released in paperback on 1st September 2013 for £7.99 (current prices).

I was sent a copy of this book to review