Do not judge the book by its cover. This is a perfect book to convey the message within the story…..

I took out the book by Ed Vere – “MR BIG”  (Puffin) and wanted to read to my son but he goes:” Mummy, not this book please, I do not like this gorilla.” After a little persuasion he sat down and listened to the story. He fell in love with this beautiful tale asking for an encore.

This is a tale of an enormous gorilla finding it very difficult to make friends. He is so huge that his physical appearance scared away people around him. Little did they know that this big gorilla is actually kind and gentle in nature.

Feeling lonely and sad, MR BIG immersed himself by playing on the piano. His beautiful music attracted people around his neighbourhood and everybody were wondering who played such beautiful music.

One fine day, he received an invitation to play in a band. Thereafter, many got to know the gentle nature of Ed Vere’s MR BIG and he became very well received by many others.

This is a very heart-warming story and it teaches the children never to judge a friend by their look or size. As a parent, I find the story very meaningful and enjoy very bit of it as much as my children do.

Apart from the meaningful moral it brings out to the children, the graphics are very colourful and attractive. The wordings are also well illustrated by different sizes. For instance, when the words “MR BIG” are mentioned, it really stands out among other words. When the word “small” is mention, the word is tiny compared with other words in the page. It is a good book for early readers from age 3 to 5 years old.

MR BIG by Ed Vere (Puffin) has been chosen for this year’s Booktime programme, organized by independent reading Booktrust, which distributes 1.4million free books to all four to five years-old in England.

The book MR BIG will be available in all major bookstores at S$15 (before GST).

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