Hardie Gramatky - Little Toot

Of all of the books that I have read at the daycare, Little Toot seems to be the very favorite of one little boy in particular. Jay is 2 1/2 and will bring me this book 5 or 6 times a day to read to him.

I feel there is no higher recommendation of a book, than a child that never tires of hearing the story over and over. I must admit, however to being glad that it is as short a book as it is. While I enjoy reading to the children, this book has been read so many times, that I'm having trouble finding new ways to express the story....however Jay is not tired of hearing it yet. :)


The Story

Little Toot lived at the foot of an old wharf, and was the cutest tugboat you've ever seen. He made a very small toot-toot-toot sound but blew big fat balls of smoke out of his smokestack.

Little Toot liked to play, much more than he liked working. For this reason the other tugboats made fun of him. Poor Little Toot felt lonely and embarassed and allowed himself to drift out to sea, just as a huge storm was coming. Catching a glimpse of an ocean liner that was stuck on the rocks, Little Toot puffed out an S.O.S. and then managed to help the liner break itself free and pulled it back into the harbor. Our friend Little Toot was a hero!


The Illustrations

I like the way this book is laid out, and the shape of the board book being a tugboat die-cut edging. I think this is one of the things that makes it so appealing to young children.

The face of Little Toot is very expressive, going from happy to sad to fearful to proud. I enjoy talking with the children about the facial expressions and hearing what they feel each face represents.

The colors are bright and very attractive and the pages are done simply, without a large amount of distracting detail. There are a lot of shades of blue used...which makes this an almost soothing book to look at, and makes the pages very appealing.


My Feelings

As I said, I've read this book quite a few times now. I enjoy the story, and the message that is behind it. I think it is beneficial for children to see that you don't have to be the biggest or the strongest to do something to be very proud of.

Some parts of this story do not seem to flow very easily as I am reading the book. It took me a few readings before I could say the words without stumbling on the phrasing. For example:

After that Little Toot
became quite a different
tugboat. It is said that he
can haul as big a load as
Big Toot can....

That is, when Big Toot
hasn't a very big load
to haul!

For some reason that seems to trip me up. That may just be me, others may not seem to have the same difficulties.

I loved that all of the boats have faces. It made it easy to get into discussions about facial expressions and what they mean. It makes discussions about feelings easy to bring up and allows the children an opportunity to talk about what they feel about different things, and what different facial expressions mean to them.

One of the things that I found troubling was the S.O.S. message that Little Toot puffed out of his smokestack. While this is an appropriate message, it is one that is very difficult to explain to 2-4 year olds. They don't understand why if he is asking for help, he doesn't spell out help instead. I tried as best I could to explain the message, but always in the explanation I would end up using the word 'help'.


Nuts & Bolts

This story was adapted by Linda Gramatky-Smith and illustrated by Laurie Struck Long.

The die-cut 10 page board book that I have is marked at $4.95 U.S. and $6.75 in Canada.

***Special Note: While the picture that Epinions has posted is of one cover of this book, the descriptions that they list at the bottom of the page include the board book that I am reviewing here***



Recommend this product? Yes