12 Days of Picture Books Blog Tour Day 11 - The Book With No Pictures {A Review}

Welcome to my fifth review post in the Penguin Young Readers 12 Days of Picture Books Blog Tour. I am thrilled to be participating in this event during this holiday season. What better gift to bestow upon your child(ren) than a book (or many books) to instill the love of reading. Not only will I be sharing reviews of some great children's books (6 to be exact for this blog tour), but you will have the opportunity to go over to the Penguin Young Readers Facebook page to enter to win some awesome books for your kids.

I invite you to stop by my intro post to see the list of the books that are a part of this great celebration.

Today I would like to share my review for The Book With No Pictures by B.J. Novak

This book starts out by stating that the reader might think it is no fun to read a book with no pictures. It goes on to say that a person might feel it would be boring or serious. Which might be true as children are used to books with pictures. Pictures help to tell the story in a children's book. Of course, Tabitha and Amelia know that this isn't quite true because they are used to reading chapter books with no, or few, pictures. Hannah and Harold on the other hand, are definitely used to having pictures to look at while reading. So, we could definitely understand where the author was coming from. 

The thing is, this book is fun and funny without the pictures. The rule of the book is, the person who is reading the book to the child is required to read every... single... word out loud. No skipping words. Even when the reader has to say such things as, "I am a monkey who taught myself to read," or "And my head is made of blueberry pizza."  We also had to sing a song about eating ants for breakfast off of a rug. Then of course, there were the silly sounds:

What makes it all the more hilarious is that the reader is also reading the small text which makes it sound as if he or she is fighting against reading the book. For example, after reading "Also, I am a ROBOT MONKEY." which is written in the large font, the reader is to state, "What?!" It's like the book and the reader are having an argument, which the children just LOVE. 

The children enjoyed it the first time we read it, and we thought it would be hilarious to have daddy read it to them. This book was right up his alley. He loves being silly, and The Book With No Pictures gave him ample opportunity to be silly. 

Once again, we have found another book we highly recommend. I love that children learn that books can be fun with or without pictures. And it is quite fun as the parent to be reading a silly book. One little warning, the book does use the word, "butt" on one page. It states, "My only friend in the whole wide world is a hippo named BooBooButt" and then the small text questions, "BooBooButt?!" The children found this hilarious. I realize some may have a problem with it though. 

You can find out more about The Book With No Pictures by B.J. Novak at the official site.

Don't miss your chance to win 1 of 11 copies of  The Book With No Pictures. Just head on over to the Penguin Kids Facebook Page.

Though I won't be posting a review every day of this blog tour, I hope you will remember to head over to their Facebook page to enter to win the books that you are interested in. Be sure to check out my reviews for:

• Little Tree 
• I am Amelia Earhart
• Llama, Llama Gram and Grandpa
• The Nonsense Show
• The Day the Crayons Came Home (posting 12/17)

Also, be sure to check out the Penguin Young Readers Holiday Gift guide where you can build and share your own wish list from a huge assortment of kids’ books for all age groups.

Here are the participating blogs!

Sleeping Should Be Easy
House of Burke
Homegrown Friends

Growing Up Madison
InRandom
Crafty Moms Share
Satisfaction for Insatiable Readers
Inspiration Laboratories
Clarks Condensed
Book Rock Betty
Kid Lit Frenzy
Bored Mommy
The Delightful Life
Reads and Recipes
Omazing Kids
KidsCreative Chaos
The Chirping Moms
Hello Happy
Spark and Pook
Fun Handprint Art
Mama Smiles
Craftulate
Imagination Soup
Tots and Me
Design of the Picture Book
Gravity Bread
Creative Family Fun
Future Flying Saucers
Mrs. Karle's Sight and Sound Reading
JaMonkey
Coquette Maman
Growing Book by Book
A Little Bit of Everything
Happily Ever Mom
Little Earthling
The Little Tourist

Disclosure: I received a hardcover copy of The Book With No Pictures by B.J. Novak in exchange for my honest review as a part of this blog tour. No further compensation was given. This did not in any way influence my review. I only recommend products I use personally and feel will be a good products for my readers.