Yes

Bobo

by Jez Alborough

YES! The cuddly hero of HUG and TALL is back!

Bobo's mother has no trouble getting her little chimp to take a bath. "Yes!" he shouts. But when it's bedtime for Bobo, he responds with a definite "No." In this tale of two words, it takes some patient animal friends and plenty of splashing to alter one contrary little chimp's attitude. By popular demand, Jez Alborough brings back the beloved Bobo in a charming bedtime story for every preschooler who loves chimps — and every parent who could use a welcome break from "No!"

Genres: Picture Books, Childrens, Animals, Storytime, Family, Friendship, Fiction

40 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Jez is the author and illustrator of 48 books for children. In 2018 he published The Story of 'You' his first book for adults, the first in a series called Life Beyond Personality. He says: "We enter this world as pure Oneness, (what I call our ‘original state of Being’) but we lose this as we become identified with our Personality. In that identification, the Stillness and Love of our Original State is overshadowed by the suffering of the Personality.

"Our Personality creates its own dream from the deep-seated beliefs and emotions it harbours; a dream that can be full of emotional distress, over-thinking and the constant investment in a future which never quite delivers on the belief: ‘When I get this I’ll be happy.’ The Story of ‘You’ suggests it’s possible to wake up out of that dream. When that happens, a whole new adventure begins in a life beyond the Personality."

The Infinite Journey, the second Book in the series, is published in early 2019.


Children's Books

His Eddy and the Bear trilogy (which began with the much-loved Where's My Teddy in 1992) has sold nearly four and a half million copies and was made into an BAFTA award-winning animated television series.

Duck in the Truck (published in 1999) heralded the start of another bestselling series, this time featuring the irrepressible Duck and his three friends - Frog, Goat and Sheep. There are currently nine books in the Duck series and almost than 1.5 million copies have been sold.

In 2000 Jez created Hug - a powerful and touching book of only three words about a baby chimpanzee called Bobo who loses his Mom. Oprah Winfrey raved about it on her show when she chose it for her recommended reading list while Richard Curtis (the writer and director of Four Weddings and a Funeral) selected it as one of his ‘Best Books’, calling it ‘classic family drama which holds up well next to Jez’s other masterpieces.’ Bobo went on to star in thee more classics; Tall ( which along with Hug won the Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Platinum Book Award) Yes and Play. The series has sold almost 3 million copies.

Jez lives in West London. You can read more about his books for children in the JezAlborough.com library and about The Story of 'You' at LifeBeyondPersonality.com.

Jez's Facebook page is: http://www.facebook.com/jezalborough and you can follow him on Twitter: https://twitter.com/jezalborough

Reviews

[TJE · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cute pictures, 2 words for whole book, perfect for beginning readers or repeated reading. T loved the silliness of Bobo.

[Tara · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great book for emergent readers. The illustrations are bright and expressive, and the words throughout the book are simple and repetitive. I read this with a kindergartener in a shared reading and she enjoyed this book and told me she would recommend it to friends. This helped to build her confidence as a reader. We were also able to discuss predictions and connections. The illustrations made it clear how the characters are feeling, which was important to our reading because we focused on "expressive reading." I would recommend this as a class shared reading or a one-on-one for emergent readers who need a confidence boost!

[Daniel Stolfi · Rating 3 out of 5]

So my daughter loves this book. She loves it soooo much. But I would suggest that NO should be the title because that's all my daughter says now! The monkey gets what he wants by being a brat and saying NO. I think NO is said more than YES in this book and it's not cool Jez. Not cool. But... HUG is an awesome book!!! AWESOME! Anyway. 3 stars because my daughter loves it but I think you titled it wrong.

[Dorthe Svendsen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dette er også bøker for de aller minste. Disse tror jeg passer bedre i barnehagen enn i barneskolen når det kommer til høytlening. Men å ha dem tilgjenglig i førsteklasse til de som har lært seg å lese ord, og som på egenhånd vil prøve seg på engelsk fungerer nok fint. De repeterer enkeltord en del ganger, så veldig pedagogisk riktig. Har også elementer om leggetid i seg, så for de hjem det trengs å prates om, så passer deg godt!

[Dana Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

Have a 2-year-old who wants to flaunt his understanding of yes and no? Read this to them and be loud with the "Nos!" They'll love it and start reading it to themselves, then they'll read it to their toys, and then to basically anyone who will sit with them and let them read it over and over and over again, which is awesome.

[Roben · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bobo says yes to bath time but NO to bed time. Thankfully, a few friends appear to help out. Lizard and elephant play with Bobo until - YAWN! - Bobo falls asleep.
Perfect for toddlers - they love shouting "YES!" and "NO!".

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Focusing on the single word "Yes," Bobo the monkey says "Yes" to bathtime, but "No" to bedtime.

[Beronica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mostly one-worded interactions. It is a good book to read at the end

[Audrey Widjaja · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Bobo!

[Catapimba · Rating 5 out of 5]

Um dos favoritos dos três anos e a criança ainda curte alguns anos depois.

[Ashley Adams · Rating 3 out of 5]

I little primate who loves bath time and hates bedtime needs a little help from friends to tire himself out.

[Robin Obara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as good as Hug.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another Bobo the monkey wordless picture book. Bobo says no to an animal splashing him, but then he gets used to it, but then a bigger animal comes, etc. Nice pictures, cute story.

[Gail · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anything but bedtime. This was just like the boy- ran around at nap time till he just passed out mid play. Probably why he always liked this one so much.

[TFE · Rating 3 out of 5]

engaged, loved flipping the page and looking at pictures

[Picture Books · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love Jez Alborough's other book with the same characters, Hug. I chose Yes for my Picture Books as Sequential Art class beacuse, like Hug, it uses speech balloons with very simple text in them and no other text. The picture text relationship is very integrated, because the repetition of the words "yes" and "no" would make no sense without the pictures.

Jez Alborough says in an article on his website "In retrospect I can see that comics were my first teachers on the road to being a children’s book author and illustrator. Comics gave me a graphic vocabulary which I still use today; they taught me how to break up the story into important scenes and how to compose these scenes within a frame." As a kid he got the idea to start using speech bubbles to tell his stories from Dennis the Menace.

[Laura Evans · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought this was a fun book that could be used to introduce shared reading instruction to young learners/early readers. If the child can read just two words -- "no" and "yes," they begin to practice choral reading as well as filling in words when the teacher pauses. Furthermore, it's a good book to teach kids to make predictions. When the mom tells the baby gorilla it's time for bed, for example, the teacher can (maybe while covering the word "no"), ask the child what they think the gorilla is going to say. This would also start teaching the strategy of using semantic cues and pictoral cues (the baby gorilla does not look like he's saying yes in this picture!) to guess new words. A shared reading with this book would be a great way to build confidence in early readers.

[Laura Cheek · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I first came across these books from Jez Alborough, I was not that impressed. The illustrations were cute, but the story seemed to lack a bit from my adult perspective. Enter my six year old who has struggled to learn to read... my perspective has entirely changed. He mastered the few words needed to read this book and others like it. We read them interspersed with harder readers we are working on and it provides a moment of sure success and no stress - just what a struggling beginner reader needs. Brilliant.

[jacky · Rating 3 out of 5]

For some reason, I just didn't think that the characters in Hug would be in more books, but I came across a section of this author today at the library. Natalie had been bringing over Hug for me to read to her more often, so I figured we give another one a try. I liked that Yes was such a positive title, but the actual book does also deal with "no." It does a good job of showing how these words are opposites. The illustrations tell the story more than the words, which is good for a book for toddlers.

[Nell Adams · Rating 2 out of 5]

This story is about a little monkey who loves bath time and spending time in the water but once his mom says it is bedtime, he begins to say no. SO he stays in the water playing with the frog and the elephant. Then he gets tired and eventually falls asleep so the frog and the elephant take him to his mom to sleep. The illustrations are detailed and very inviting. They show emotion and the true feelings of the characters. This is a cute story that teachers could use about bed time because it shows that every one needs to sleep so that they can have just as much fun the next day.

[Katie Turley · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book mainly consists of yes and no words. It is about a gorilla whose mom is getting him or her ready for bed. She gives him a bath in the creek and he says yes. Then she says it is bed time. But he says no, no, no! His friends come and play with him in the creek. He gets tired and falls asleep on the shore. His friends take him home to his mom to go to bed.
I liked this book. I would share it with my own children that were learning simple words. I would maybe read this to them as a story before bed.

[Tdavis · Rating 4 out of 5]

The cartoon like illustrations will appeal to a young audience. With very few words this book tells the tale of a chimp who does not want to go to bed. “Yes” and “No” are in a big and bold text just like the emotions.

Early Literacy Skills:

Narrative Skills
Print Awareness
Print Motivation

[Alice · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Stars This is a fun little book about YES and NO! Sometimes Yes is good, sometimes yes is bad, sometimes No is good, sometimes no is bad. This is a book of few words but the pictures are done in such a way that you can read the expressions on the faces of the animals. The pictures are great and overall a nice book!

[Shannon · Rating 2 out of 5]

The illustrations in this book are wonderful. The pictures do a great job of capturing the stubbornness as well as the fun that toddlers get into, and how quickly they can go from one to the other. The story, on the other hand, was disappointing. Simplicity in picture books isn't always bad, but here there just isn't much outside of the illustrations to engage readers.

[Leslie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I LOVE Jez Alborough for his creative, rhyming prose and great illustrations. This one just doesn't hit the mark for me. But my toddler enjoys it and we fill in the story to teach what's happening in the scenes where the only words are Yes and No. My son loves to tell the full story back to me, so we are making it work for us. :)

[Peggy Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is ok, but I don't love it. The artwork is fantastic, but without much text, my three-year-old doesn't seem to think the scenes are very self-explanatory. I add my own "story" in, but he doesn't like that. "Is that what it really says?" he asks again and again.

[Kendra]

Really cute, and the kids love how Bobo sacks out suddenly, but the arguing yes and no feels kind of weird - shouldn't we respect our friends when they say no? Also uncomfortable with the mom pretending to leave the baby behind.

[Lisa]

My kids love this book. Not many words, so we have lots of fun making up the dialogue. It is especially fun listening to Jason (my husband) tell the story. He is good at voices.

[Kathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Jez Alborough. We love the book Hug so this follow up book about Bobo was enjoyed by my kids.

[Cat · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bedtme book. Only a few words per page.