Elepant Joe, Brave Firefighter!

Reviewed by: Carla McAllister - New Gloucester Public Library, New Gloucester, Maine, Southern Maine Library District

Review Date: January 28, 2016

Review

Elephant Joe and Zebra Pete are camping. It's Dragon's birthday and they are hiding and jump out to surprise him with a "Happy Birthday" yell. Dragon is so startled that he flies into a tree and his wings become entangled. What to do? Magically a fire engine appears with appropriate clothing and accouterments and they use a ladder to rescue Dragon. Now its time for cake and candles, but, naturally, Dragon knows not how to blow out candles and spews fire instead. Oh, oh. The cake is now in flames. What to do? This offering utilizes large comic panels, captions and speech balloons, entrancing young readers with bright colors and decoupage-like illustrations. Perhaps children could attempt the speech balloons while Mom or Dad reads the captions. This type of comic reader might be just the ticket to sway reluctant readers to begin to enjoy reading because of the cartoon-like format.

Overall Book Score: good