I Love Animals Big Book

by Flora McDonnell

"I love Jock, my dog. I love the donkey braying 'hee-haw!'" Flora McDonnell's jovial salute to farm animals—including a gallant dog, two genial ducks, an adoring ewe, and her rowdy lamb, among many others—captures their characters in large, brilliant portraits.

Genres: Animals, Picture Books, Storytime, Childrens, Juvenile, Spanish Literature

32 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

Reviews

[J · Rating 4 out of 5]

Used during an animal sounds storytime, so I asked the kids to make the sound of each animal or say the name of the animal before I read it.

[Sylvester (Taking a break in 2023) · Rating 3 out of 5]

3* art
3* words

Love the facial expressions on the animals - sort of a dorky, eyes-too-close-together look that is quite endearing.

[Roben · Rating 5 out of 5]

A perfect book for toddler storytime!

[Selena · Rating 3 out of 5]

Summary: This book highlights animals the main character (a little girl) likes the best. She begins with an animal she is very close to, her dog, Jock. Then she continues to describe animals she loves to see in her daily life, such as the ducks outside. She shares her favorite animals and what they often do when she sees them. This book is a great beginning reader book for young children who love animals just as much.
Evaluation: This beginning reader book is a great story to introduce different animals to children. This story follows the narrator as she describes her favorite animals. The illustrations bring the animals to life with big, colorful painting-like pictures. The font size is large to capture young readers’ attention and fill the book with single sentence pages. These happy animals are brought to life in this short story.
Teaching Point: This book is a great story to introduce different animals to children. The author and illustrator Flora McDonnell makes it easy for young readers to use the pictures as context clues when reading this book. Teachers can use this book as a great reference for teaching picture context clues. This book would be great for read alouds and guided reading segments. For example, when the book reads “I love the cow swishing her tail.” (p.12) the illustration shows a huge happy cow moving her tail back and forth. The teacher can point out to students the correlation between what the written words express and what the drawing represents.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

I Love Animals Big Book was a good read. This book would be great for children to start learning how to read, and for them also to learn the different animals and the sounds that they make. The artwork in the book really did a great job the animals really do look like they would appear in real life. If you need to learn you animals do read this book!

[Peacegal · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a delightful, happy book. I was heartened to see that the majority of the animals the young narrator names are farm animals--those beings that even the most ardent animal lovers so often forget. Great reminder that chickens, pigs, cows, and more are animals too and deserve our love and concern--just like cats and dogs!

[Shari (Shira) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book in big book format. It is everything a big book should be: enlarged text (not just the illustrations), gorgeous illustrations, and predictable text. Candlewick has released a number of books in big book format. I hope it helps to bring big books back.

[Violeta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un libro hermoso y sencillo para la primera infancia. Las ilustraciones son tan hermosas que dan ganas de volver y volver a él para mirarlas y mirarlas. Dan ganas de dibujar y de acariciar animales. Era lo que estaba buscando.

[mollie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was tons of fun for my little brother, asked him to name the animals and what sound they make.

[Kristy Teague · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bright, colorful illustrations to help children learn how to draw or trace animals.

[Debra · Rating 5 out of 5]

How fun for a small to Tyler to learn about animals.

[Caroline · Rating 3 out of 5]

The text is simple, black and contrasts well with the background. Each two-page spread shows a different animal.

A simple selection for a story time on animals.

[Katie Fitzgerald · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read at Baby/Toddler story time on 1/25/11: http://storytimesecrets.blogspot.com/... (*I forgot to mention it in my blog post.)

Read at Toddler Lap Time on 2/15/13: http://storytimesecrets.blogspot.com/...

Read at drop-in story time on 7/12/13: http://storytimesecrets.blogspot.com/...

[Bethany Sutherland]

I Love Animals is a book about a little girls love for animals. She tells that she loves the animal for all the farm animals given and a little reason why. She just hopes that the animals love her as much as she loves them.

I liked the book because I love animals, especially farm animals, and that is what the book focused on.

I would use this book to have the students come up with the story. I would cover the words and have them make up the story from the pictures.

[Lindsay · Rating 3 out of 5]

I believe I've used this story in Spanish and bilingual story time before, but this last time I used it was for a sheep-themed program for both Spanish and bilingual story time. It's a simple story that introduces different animals on a farm.

[Miss Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

This didn't really grab me. Simple enough for toddler's and babies and I could probably get the toddlers to make the animal movements. A little girl goes animal by animal around the farm naming the animals and what she movement or sound she loves about them.

[Ecl Storytellers · Rating 5 out of 5]

The animals are painted in bold primary colors. Very short text. Good choice for young listeners

[Vicki · Rating 3 out of 5]

The best feature of this book are the large illustrations. This book also lends itself to having the listeners make animal noises.

[Ana LibrariAna · Rating 3 out of 5]

An ideal story to read to young kids learning about animals and farms.

[Lindsay · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love the full page illustrations of this simple book.

[Krystal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great board book. I love that there are a lot of pages for a board book, a good variety of animals, very colorful illustrations with large focal images and interesting details.

[Melissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice big book for story time, easy to engage the audience.

[Trin.Jen.Anna · Rating 2 out of 5]

Good book, but a little lower level for us.

[Leah · Rating 3 out of 5]

A simple children's book introducing various barnyard animals.