Shaun the Sheep: On the Ball

Tales from Mossy Bottom Farm

by Martin Howard

Fans of CBBC’s Shaun the Sheep will adore the 4th novel in the Tales from Mossy Bottom Farm series, which is based on characters from the top-rated TV show by Aardman (the creators of Wallace and Gromit). There are black-and-white illustrations throughout, plus comic strips and activity pages. It’s a sunny afternoon on Mossy Bottom Farm, and competition between the sheep and the pigs is almost as hot as the weather as they play a new game called Piggy Stomp. May the best tail win!

Genres: Childrens, Humor

112 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 4, 2015

Reviews

[Grace · Rating 5 out of 5]

Easy read before bed

[Wilde Sky · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some farm animals play different games.

This was a reasonable story that may appeal to young children.

[Elizabeth Meadows · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this to my daughter who has autism. It was cute! I'm not sure how much she got out of it, but I personally appreciated learning the names for the side characters. Since the show doesn't use words, it was kind of nice to have a Shaun the Sheep story with words for a change. I would read more from this series.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cute read. Love how the character traits mimic the characters from the TV show.

[Tima · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shaun and his other sheep friends invent a really fun game called Bitzerball. This game has a lot of rules. One of the main rules is that the rules can change at any time. They think it will be fun to have the pigs join them and then keep changing the rules. But things are really complicated even to the sheep and for a while it looks like the pigs will win the game. Shaun needs to find a way to complete the obstacle course and win the game against the pigs.

The book begins with a map of the farm to give the young readers a visual of the story taking place. It also includes a brief bio on some of the main characters. The font is large and the vocabulary is right on target for the age group. The book is the perfect size for small hands to hold. The illustrations help tell the story and had my children laughing throughout the book. Parents and teachers will enjoy this book that encourages and fosters reading; while children enjoy the amusing and illogical story about farm animals. The book ends with the first chapter of another book in the series to encourage further reading.

I received this book free of charge from Children's Lit in exchange for my honest review.

[Theediscerning · Rating 1 out of 5]

Well, I persisted to the end – despite the file being horrendously slow on netgalley, and the dross of the book. Very, very basic stupidity with little to redeem it in the way of cleverness, inventiveness or style. There are hundreds of books for this age range published every year, if not monthly, that improve on this. It has none of the Aardman magic that other books manage, such as the Wallace and Gromit cartoon strip compilations, it has no moral about being a polite victor at the end, and no logic to the ridiculous foolishness it describes. Very, very poor.

[Bücherfresserin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Erstes Buch auf Portugiesisch :-)
Sehr süß, mit Zeichnungen und dem typischen Humor von Shaun.

[Veronica · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wasn't too keen on this but my son who is 6 absolutely loved it. Shaun the Sheep has a great appeal for young children and I am glad to see that they are expanding into children's books.