Maisy Big, Maisy Small (9/28/2010)

Title: Maisy Big, Maisy Small
Author: Lucy Cousins
Age: Preschool
Rating: 5
Type: Picture Book


Summary: This picture book about a mouse named Maisy who describes opposites by relating it to herself.

I loved this picture book because you didn't even need to read the words to know what opposites were being described. For example; there is a picture of Maisy by herself  and there is a picture of Maisy with a lot of people. You do not  need to read the page to know that in one picture "Maisy alone" and in the other picture "Maisy together." This is something we learned in class. That good picture books will tell a story through the pictures and not just through the text. The illustrations are so good that I think this could be a wordless book and even preschoolers and non readers would be able to tell what is going on in the book.

The illustrations in this book are fun, bright and engaging. I also found a Maisy Website. Which provides children will a ton of fun games and coloring books about their favorite Mouse, Maisy. I think this is really important because it gets children excited to read more. They can explore the website and even buy more Maisy books. It continues the learning outside of the book. Plus it is fun!

While, I was looking for reviews about this book I came across a interesting story a mother had to tell about how the book taught her concept of size.
The mother said; "We were playing with her play dough salon toy set the other day. The play dough hair was too short for Ana to give the doll a haircut. So, I said, "let's make the hair long, Ana, it is too short now to give a proper haircut". To which she promptly replied, "No, Amma, let's make it tall, let's make the hair tall... it is too short now"! I had not introduced long vs. short to her before, and looks like she just decided Maisy was right about it and promptly corrected me" - Saffron Tree
I thought this was so interesting! In the book Maisy describes "short and tall." This little girl took what she learned about opposites and applied it to the real world. She may have been wrong about it but still she was learning something from the book. I am interested to read other Maisy books just to see the fun and interesting ways to incorporate interactive learning into books.