Saturday, July 23, 2011

Book Review: Hugo The Happy Starfish Wants To Be Different

Written & Illustrated By Susanne Liebermann
Published by Happy Language Kids LLC
Released on November 1st, 2010
Source- book from author for review
Ages 3 & up
3.5 stars- It's A Good Read

Happiness Begins Within
... a story about self-esteemHugo the Happy Starfish Learns to Love HimselfHugo is a little starfish living in the big green ocean. Every day Hugo smiles and makes other creatures happy—and doing that makes Hugo happy. But one day Hugo stops smiling. He begins to feel small and ugly, convinced that nobody likes him. Hugo decides that he should try to be more like the Magic Manta so that everyone will like him. Join Hugo on his journey as he discovers that being himself is the best way to be—and the only way to be happy.

Hugo's story is a good way to teach kids about having a good self-esteem and to be happy with the way they are. Hugo is a happy star fish who likes making others feel happy, but when he's granted a few wishes he decides he wants to change a few thing he doesn't like about himself. Hugo learns a great lesson and once those changes are made he wishes he could be himself again.

With it's cute, brightly colored pages, Hugo will teach kids to be happy just being themselves. The only compliant I have is I felt the Spanish translation were really random through out the story. I would have loved to see the translations on every page and not just in the middle of some of the sentences or on certain pages. This is a great story that will each kids to have a good self-esteem and like Hugo learned, they too will realize they're special just the way they are.
I would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves. ~ Anna Quindlen

Good children's literature appeals not only to
the child in the adult, but to the adult in the child.
~ Anonymous ~