“Laugh Along Lessons: 5 Minute Stories”, by Helen Lester. (Book Review)
This collection features eight 5-minutes stories that will have your children giggling while they learn important life lessons. The accompanying illustrations are colorful and very humorous! Any of these would be the perfect, quick, 5 minute bedtime read:
Hurty Feelings It Wasn’t My Fault Listen, Buddy Me First A Porcupine Named Fluffy Princess Penelope’s Parrot The Wizard, the Fairy, and the Magic Chicken
The Sheep in Wolf’s Clothing
The book as a whole is filled with lessons on sharing, teasing, bullying, standing up for yourself, listening, working as team, taking turns, and feeling good about yourself. We are taught these lessons in a humorous way through lovable heroes and heroines, plump and fluffy and bedraggled and sweet. As an added bonus, and a great treat for the value, this book includes a downloadable audio! Below are a few synopses of our favorites from Helen Lester’s 5 Minute Stories bedtime book!:
“Hurty Feelings”
Fragility is an aptly named hippopotamus – fragile and overly sensitive. Sticks and stones may not break her bones but she will construe any nice thing you say into something worthy of tears. She is weepy, she is whiny. She cannot even take a compliment! When told she has sturdy hippo legs she weeps about being compared to a piano, another thing with sturdy legs. What a drama queen! When Rudy the rude elephant tries to insult Fragility he gets a taste of his own medicine. This lesson in anti-bullying, listening, and calming down is fun for kids, particularly as they see such big, strong animals weeping and wailing over silly things!
“It Wasn’t My Fault”
Murdley Gurdson is a clumsy and forgetful, but headstrong little boy. He was outside for a walk when something laid an egg on his head, making him messy and upset! Murdley goes around pointing fingers and interrogating all the forest animals to find the culprit! The bird confesses he did lay the egg, but blames it on the aardvark who scared him. Off they go to find the aardvark, who in turn blames scaring the bird on the hippo who blames it on the… and so on and so on! Could Murdley be at fault for laying the egg on his own head?! This story is a really fun who-done-it tale, with a great lead character in Murdley, a boy with a name you can’t help but already feel sorry for!
“A Porcupine Named Fluffy”
Mr. and Mrs. Porcupine named their new baby porcupine Fluffy. Growing up as a pointy porcupine with a soft name is not idea. Nothing Fluffy does fits with his name – he pokes holes in mattresses, tries to flatten his spikes with bathtub water and tries to do things to make his spikes seem more fluffy, all to no avail. Fluffy isn’t Fluffy. Our hero is a little sad until he meets a Rhinoceros whose parents share a similar sense of humor… and named their baby Rhino, Hippo!
“Princess Penelope’s Parrot”
Bratty Princess Penelope insults her pet parrot and treats him cruelly after he does not perform his expected parrot duties and repeat words after her. The Princess yells and calls him mean names, more or less bullying the poor parrot. The Princess gets s dose of karma due to her at the most perfect, inopportune time – as she receives a visit from the Prince! Will her poorly treated parrot perk up and paraphase what Penelope has previously said?
Title: Laugh-Along Lessons 5-Minute Stories
Author: Helen Lester, Lynn Munsinger,
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
Publisher: HMH Books For Young Readers
Release Date: April 7, 2015
Pages: 256
