The Amazing Adventures of Paddy Platypus by Tom de Paolo

I read this book before I read it to my children, and at first, I thought, "AAHH! What a bunch of big words for them to try and understand!!" (well, our almost 9 year old would be fine, I thought). I read it out loud to our 2 year old and 5 year old, and they were to busy checking out the cool pictures, to care what in the world I was saying, lol! But, Genevive, (5), at the end, had lots of questions about the book and Paddy, she listened after all!
This kind of proves my belief that, no matter what the book is, if you read to your kids, or even talk to them as if they were a regular grown up, they will hear you and they will start to understand some of those harder words. Our children's brains are like sponges, from day 1, and it is very important to read to your children, (books like this that have a more broad vocabulary are excellent!), and the earlier the better!! the more you read to them, the more they learn and grow!
Paddy the Platypus is a loveable character, and he is just a kid! The illustrations are very neat! Actually, I haven't seen such illustrations with so much depth and detail quite like these for a while. My little ones really enjoyed them and each time I turned the page, we had to stop and discuss the pictures, and go back over what was going on in the story.
It is a little longer of a book, but that's a plus in our book! It may take a little longer to get through then an average children's book, but this isn't an average children's book.
Paddy Platypus lives in Tasmania, and is a fine swimmer! So, he is asked to travel to the United States, to swim for his country in the Olympics. He goes along, reluctantly, and he misses home, and doesn't like the noise and all the commotion, (just like a human kid;), and what happens at the end is just adorable! We giggled and giggled and giggled more, and discussed why he did what he did, and what would we do if we were Paddy. (We voted and we all would have done the same thing!!)
This is a very funny book, easy for parents to read, and another plus is... give this book to your young reader to enjoy! Ours read this by himself, and after that, he read to his brother and sister. perfect book to keep those young readers motivated during the summer months!
We recommend this book to children of all ages, and we are all hoping to see Paddy come back in a new story VERY SOON:)

** We received a copy of this book in return for our honest review **