Bamboo & Friends The Rainbow by Felicia Law
Illustrated by Claire Philpott & Karen Radford
My 15 year old daughter loves rainbows and pandas a great deal. When she found a book about a panda bear with ”rainbow” in the title she grabbed it to put on the bookshelf at my house, for the munchkins. Um… yeah Caitlin… sure I believe that you bought this book for them…
Bamboo & Friends The Rainbow is a hard cover book, with a dust jacket, by Felicia Law and Illustrated by Claire Philpott & Karen Radford. The cover has a cute panda bear, a rainbow, a butterfly, some grass and a weird looking striped bird. There are 24 pages.
The illustrations are bright and soft looking. The animals look cuddly, the colors and background scenery are lively and cheerful with textures. It almost looks as if it’s done in oil paints. It is a magical forest after all, so the animals are a wee bit different than the ones you may see in a book or on the Discovery channel. For example the penguin has an orange, yellow, and blue striped beak. The insects and like creatures in the book are all magical looking with colors you don’t see in the natural forest.
The story starts out with Bamboo the panda, Velvet the zebra (at least I think it’s a zebra it is white and black striped with big floppy black ears and a fluffy tail), and Beak the penguin sitting on a log in the rain holding leaves over their heads. Way off to the left hand side of the page spread is a lady bug on a blade of grass holding a flower as an umbrella. The three friends are talking about how funny the weather is; raining in one spot, yet the sky ”over there is blue with the sun shining. It is the perfect weather for a rainbow!
Following that is a two page spread of a magnificent rainbow with a butterfly, a striped bird, and two … I don’t know what they are! To me they look like striped fishes with fly-type wings instead of gills. It is a magical forest, after all, so that could be what they are. They are adorable either way.
Bamboo wants to know how that happened. Was it magic? No, its science, Beck tells him. Bamboo wants to find where it ends so he can see the pot of gold. Beak superiorly tells him that you can’t find or touch a rainbow because it’s not solid. He also tells Bamboo that the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow is just a ”fairy tale”, and proceeds to inform him that it’s the sun shining through the raindrop that gives us the vision of a rainbow.
More page sets talk about the colors of the rainbow, the magic of the rainbow, and why the rainbow bends (the sunlight shining through the raindrops makes the colors bend). Then the 3 friends frolic around bending like a rainbow. It would seem the animals have their own version of the ever popular Curves!
The book ends with the rain stopping, the rainbow fading away, and the three friends saying good bye to the rainbow! Goodbye to the Science lesson! And Goodbye to the magic! It’s not a sad ending though; it leaves you with a sense of peace.
Not only is Bamboo & Friends The Rainbow a lovely story but it’s very educational as well. You learn about what a rainbow is and why we can see them, that there are no pots of gold *sigh*, and that you can’t touch them. I’ll be honest with you I have always wondered if you can touch a rainbow.
You see I’m like Bamboo, in that I think rainbows are magic and to this very day I still pull over to the side of the road and stop and look at them when I see them. It’s a special treat to see a double rainbow!
In addition to the education within the story itself there are sidebars, if you will, throughout the book with more tidbits of information. These tidbits are separated and set apart by the leaves forming the box. Five tidbits in all are seen through the book, such as: ”A rainbow is actually round. You can’t see the bottom half because the horizon gets in the way. The horizon is the line where land and sky seem to meet” I didn’t know that.
I like how this book gives information, but not in a talking-down-to-you type way that often occurs in children’s books; instead it’s straight forward information from one friend to another. And to ice the cake the last page in this book is a Fun Facts page with websites, facts, and even a listing of other books that include Bamboo and his friends.
I couldn’t begin to guess what age group this story is aimed at. I think it could go to any age at all. I have teenagers who find it interesting, I have learned plenty from the book, and my little kids just love it. Even the cat sleeps on it if it’s out so he enjoys it too.
Bamboo & Friends The Rainbow by Felicia Law and illustrated by Claire Philpott & Karen Radford is a wonderful book for any home, classroom, or daycare center around, especially where readers of any age are enchanted by magic. The story is short but informative and entertaining, the characters are cute, and the illustrations are beautiful. This is a purchase that will never be regretted.
Sitting on a log in their magical rain forest home while it is raining, Bamboo and Velvet watch the changes in the sky as it rains, and learn all abou...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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