You are here: Home » Reviews » Family » The Adventures of Penny the Postie – Penny and the Pirates by Keith Robinson

The Adventures of Penny the Postie – Penny and the Pirates by Keith Robinson

Posted by dulwichmum on Mon 25 October 2010

Name of product: The Adventures of Penny the Postie – Penny and the Pirates by Keith Robinson

Price: £4.95 by Guernsey Post Limited including £2.95 of Guernsey Pirate Stamps (“Shiver me timbers” I hear you cry)

The blurb: “Keith Robinson is an illustrator and animator who has worked on numerous television programmes, illustrated books and websites. As a child he always loved making up stories and reading and as a grown-up he feels very lucky that this is his job (although he still secretly wishes he had been a spaceman). The Penny the Postie is based in Guernsey where the young, fearless Penny embarks on her adventures”

First impressions: The book is beautifully illustrated with lots of intricate details to draw the poppets attention. Images range from those covering the page with embedded text to those seperated from the text in boxes and speech bubbles. The story evolves quickly into an adventure with elements of humour perfect for sharing with darlings aged between 5 and 8 years. The back of the book has a space with Pirate Stamps tucked in, perfect for inspiring children to think about the old approach to communication, the era before text talk, blogging, twitter and instant messenger…oh those were the good old days (sigh)

Pros: : The story charts Penny’s adventures and includes all the vital elements of a children’s book; Penny is a fearless heroine with morals, my poppets have thise in abundance already – clearly (looks smug), a sad and sniveling Pirate Titch and Captain BullyBones who is greedy and immoral (and from the illustrations suffers from bad dental hygiene too). These characters and their interactions provide a story with humour, a subtle moral message, adventure and mystery. The book not only starts with an adventure but ends with a question about what will happen next. Perfect for stimulating the poppets’ precious imaginations before they are stomped on by “the glass-is-half-empty” brigade (shakes fist at sky)

Cons: Its hard to think of any cons as it is a really well written, nicely illustrated book that would appeal equally to boys and girls between 5 – 8 (and besides who doesn’t love the chance to polish up your best pirate accent and make the poppets giggle)