Just the Thing!

by Damian Harvey, Lynne Chapman (Illustrator)

Big Gorilla has a hard-to-scratch itch right in the middle of his back! The other animals offer suggestions, but nothing seems to work. In fact, their advice makes his problem even worse! Where can a gorilla find just the thing to soothe an itch? The answer may be closer than he thinks!

Genres: Picture Books, Storytime, Childrens

32 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Hi, I live in North Wales with my lovely wife, Vicky. She's a librarian and spends lots of her time sharing stories and leading Rhymetime sessions with toddlers in local libraries.

I've written just over 100 books for young children and I'm busy writing more. When I'm not writing or spending time with my family I can usually be found visiting schools and libraries all over the place to share my love of books, reading and writing and getting children excited about the very same thing.

Why not come over and take a look at my website to find out more, follow me on Twitter or just email me to say hi! It'll be nice to hear from you...

Reviews

[Ham · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great art. Simple but effective story. And it might just be my interpretation but it seemed to me the author was hinting that having kids can help men with “the seven year itch” lol. I will agree that kids help us to lose our selfishness and content ourselves with what’s most important in life.

[Allison · Rating 2 out of 5]

Big Gorilla has an itch he cannot reach! He asks advice from all the other jungle animals (aparently never having read about the sorrows incured in other stories by doing so...) about what to do, and ends up a mess, and itchier than ever!

Nice, big, bright color pictures. Nothing too original, though. The whole asking other animals thing is way over done.

[Yaply · Rating 3 out of 5]

Daddy gorilla has an itch and everyone has a opinion on what he should do but none of it works.

This book is of the formula: tried it once and failed, tried it twice and failed, tried it three times and failed. Then unexpectedly without trying it works.

I've been reading this book to my kids every 6 months to 1 year and they like it more each time. The conclusion makes my children happy.

[Jackie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Big Gorilla has an itch that will not go away...Mama Gorilla, Warthog, Lion, and Elephant all try to help Big Gorilla by suggesting their favorite scratching posts. BUT, oh! That itch will not go away!

Relief comes from a most unlikely and unexpected source...who knew?!
Great for storytime with its repetition and probable prediction clues.

[The Brothers · Rating 4 out of 5]

A gorilla has a terrible itch and tries a bunch of remedies offered by the other jungle creatures as "just the thing" but none of them work and his itch just keeps getting worse. In the end, it turns out that his little gorilla son is "just the thing" to scratch his itch.

Really fun, goofy illustrations.