Crack detective P.I. Penguin is on the hunt again.Bella’s bottle was there one minute, gone the next!Was it stolen by a nasty bottle thief?Follow the clues to solve the crime, find out where the bottle has gone, and maybe, JUST MAYBE, discover the truth about the ultimate mystery – PI’s missing parents.If your child enjoys adventure stories, solving mysteries and addictive stories, they will want … stories, solving mysteries and addictive stories, they will want to read all five in the series! Get them now!
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P.I. Penguin has an ongoing investigation into the disappearance of his parents. While that seems to be the lynchpin of the series, he does take on other cases along the way. In The Case of The Missing Bottle, he helps his friend Bella find a bottle that has turned up missing from her collection.
The book has many things to recommend it. In the beginning, it starts with a glossary of new words for kids to learn. I am always a fan of glossaries in kid’s books. I particularly enjoy this one because instead of having to break the flow of the story to look up words in the back of the book, this glossary puts the words front and center, exposing kids to the new words before they read the story even giving them page numbers. Next, the Illustrations are spot on. Full page, colorful and dynamic, the depictions of life under the sea and of the various characters P.I. meets along the way are truly engaging. I also enjoyed the very gentle message to keep the ocean clean and to recycle. Can we also just take a moment to enjoy a bottlenose dolphin with a bottle collection?
While this story is quite fun and shows the potential of the series, it does also raise some concerns for me. First of all is the story prose. The concept of telling the story using rhyming paragraphs is quite novel and a great way to encourage readers, however, the rhymes often seem forced to fit the format, adding cluttering details to the story or just not expressing the story in a clear way. Also, this book is marketed for grades K-7. The issue here is while the kid-friendly illustrations and rhyming text works well for early readers, the vocabulary, sentence structure, and the ongoing/unresolved story of P.I.’s missing parents fits best with grades 3/4 and up and honestly this group will have progressed well past picture books, even taking into account most literacy difficulties. The outcome is that it comes off a bit clunky in execution. I would like to note that the concept of P.I.’s missing parents horrified my 15-year-old. He felt that it was not a good fit for any young children’s book in the way that it was presented.
“The penguin could not quite decide if they had run away to hide,
or had they left him cast aside, or had their freedom been denied?”
As the mom of a child with severe learning disabilities, I was excited to run across this set of books, advertised to be a help to dyslexic readers. The book’s website https://www.aulexic.com.au/ was quite promising as it also offers a podcast and blog posts with some great information. Any book that encourages kids to read is a win in my book and this particular book is printed in a font that is easily accessible to dyslexic readers. My son noticed it immediately and had terrific things to say about the readability of the text in this book. That is a good enough endorsement for me.
This is a wonderful early reader book I am excited to share with you. The wonderful rhyming words and flowing story will keep your kids attention. The pretty pictures will hold their mind when they get tired. There is a glossary of tricky words at the front of the book. Isn’t that great it is right where you need it to be. Your wee ones will want you to read them this book. Then soon they will start picking out words. Then you will be team reading it together. Then they will push you aside and read it to you. I think this book will stick around.
P I went down to the Ocean to think and heard a voice. “Stop thief!”. Someone had stolen the bottle nosed dolphins bottle. P. I. jumped in to look at the scene of the crime. He found where the bottle was and then followed the clues to Gordon Grey shark. He sent him to some Leafy Sea Dragons. Where will they go from here? Where is the bottle? I know one thing. The ocean will be very pretty and the fish and mammals you meet will be very interesting. I can’t wait for you to find out.
I found this book on a website for free for an honest review.