About Blue's Best Rainy Day

Blue's Best Rainy Day is a 22 page 8x8 paperback book that was published in 2000. It was written by Deborah Reber and illustrated by Kevin Cardinali. Blue's Best Rainy Day is part of a series of Blue's Clues books. I'm not sure exactly how many books are in this particular series but I do know the first 11 books. They are:

1. Magenta's Visit
2. What to Do, Blue?
3. Blue's Best Rainy Day
4. Blue Goes to School
5. I Want to be in the Show
6. Blue's Egg Hunt
7. Mrs. Pepper's Mother's Day
8. Blue's Thanksgiving Feast
9. Blue's Sniffly Day
10. Magenta Gets Glasses!
11. Blue's Big Birthday
12. Joe Moves In
13. Blue's Check Up
14. A Blue's Clues Chanukah
15. A Visit from the Tooth Fairy
16. A Blue's Clues Holiday

The only reason I know the books in the series up to #11 is because the first 10 are listed on the back of Blue's Big Birthday (which is #11). What I would really like to find would be a list of all the books in this series because Courtney loves these books and I would like to get them all, but for some reason, Simon & Schuster, the publishers, haven't made this easy to do because there isn't an official list put out anywhere. I guess I'll just have to be satisfied with the above books and should I run across #12 somewhere, then I'll be pleasantly surprised. (Update - I ran across quite a few more as of 12/14/04 and have added them to the above list.)

The Story

Blue had invited her friends from school over for a play date but unfortunately, it started to rain. What was everyone going to do all day indoors? Blue has the idea that she and her friends could do a scavenger hunt and everyone is very excited about it! The list of things they need to find are socks, a box, buttons, fabric, glue, and yarn. They find the socks in the bedroom, they find the box in the mudroom, they find the buttons in the kitchen, they find the fabric in the bathroom, and they find the glue and yarn on the art table in the living room.
Next, everyone sits and thinks about what all these items could be used for......sock puppets! The box is used for the stage and the fabric is used for curtains for the stage. The socks, buttons, glue and yarn are used for making the sock puppets and for the rest of the afternoon Blue and her friends put on the play "The Three Little Pigs" with their sock puppets.

Why We Like Blue's Best Rainy Day

Any Blue's Clues toy, book, video, etc.... is an automatic hit in our house. Courtney first discovered Blue's Clues at the age of 6 months and has been in love with anything that has to do with Blue ever since then. She also loves books, so Blue's Best Rainy Day is a favorite in our house. She likes to point out all the characters and tell us their names. She also loves to tell us the names of objects and we spend a lot of time looking through books and naming off all the objects she sees. The illustrations are nice and colorful and while these 8x8 paperbacks do have different illustrators, the characters all look the same so children who are fans of the show won't have any problem identifying who Blue is, who Magenta is, etc....

What I really like about Blue's Best Rainy Day is that it teaches children to use their imagination and also their creativity. It promotes art and the use of every day objects that they find around the house. Plus it gives us parents an idea for a fun activity when we hear the inevitable "Mom, I'm bored!" on rainy or snowy days.

The only con that I can think of is that in Blue's Best Rainy Day, they don't actually play the game of Blue's Clues, but really, that is only an observation instead of an actual con since the scavenger hunt is sort of like Blue's Clues.

Courtney has 7 of the books from the list above and I like them so much that I plan on getting her the ones she's missing. In fact, the Easter Bunny will be putting Blue's Egg Hunt in her basket this year, so be on the look out for a review on that book in the near future!

Related Websites

Blue's Clues on Nick Jr. :

http://www.nickjr.com/grownups/home/shows/blue/

Clue Into Safety :

http://www.clueintosafety.com/cis/www/asp/neighborhood.asp

To Purchase Blue's Clues Books :

http://www.simonsays.com/subs/category.cfm?areaid=183&ctgyid=233&order=title

Recommended: Yes