Book "Oliver and Jumpy - Stories 55-57" by Werner Stejskal

About the Book: Oliver is an elegant tuxedo cat, who is full of himself. As a matter of fact he says: “I love myself!”, quite often. Naughty, isn’t he? But his best friend Jumpy, a kangaroo lady, is aware that he has a soft heart and will always want to help others. The great thing is Jumpy’s pouch, which Oliver loves to ride in! He calls her his kangaroo taxi! These little bedtime stories with their lovely illustrations are great for small kids. A parent can read the text and tell the child in his own words. These animal stories have sufficient text to keep early readers happy and provide some educational value. Love you all! Meow!

• Story 55: Flood – The land gets flooded and Oliver is of great help, as always. 
• Story 56: Lazy Squirrel – The lazy squirrel boy is taught a lesson to help others. 
• Story 57: Unexpected Lory – Oliver has to deal with a know-it-all teenager.

About the Author: Born in Vienna, Austria, Werner is now living in the paradise of Perth, Australia with his wife, two married children, and three grandchildren. He worked many years in the printing industry and later for the United Nations in Vienna. His wife had been a pen-friend, whom Werner visited in Hong Kong and finally got married to. After an eventful life, now retired, he began to write children's stories, had them illustrated through Upwork, narrated them himself for YouTube and finally published the ebooks on most platforms. Werner's dream is to see "Oliver and Jumpy" animated as a TV series.

There are lots of fairy tales and bedtime stories around and many of them quite violent. This made Werner decide to write something different. On a flight from Europe to Australia, he watched the movie Magic on Belle Island with Morgan Freeman, where Freeman teaches a little girl to have imagination and write her first story. This inspired Werner as well and the first stories with his two characters Oliver, the elegant tomcat, and Jumpy, his kangaroo lady friend, made their appearance. Some very capable illustrators have helped to create this picture book series.

My Review: This book is part of a series called Oliver and Jumpy. This particular volume has stories 55 - Flood, 56 - Lazy Squirrel, and 57 - Unexpected Lory. It is an excellent gift for parents with children under 8 as suggested by the author. The book is beautifully illustrated by Maycee Ann Reyes and that is a very important plus, as its main audience will rely on the images to follow the stories, as many will not have reached the age to start reading by themselves. In "Flood", as a storm approaches, Oliver invites his friends Jumpy and Joey to shelter at his treehouse. As things get worst, he ended up having to shelter many other animals and they have to behave themselves! In the "Lazy Squirrel", Oliver plays a detective, trying to figure out what was happening to the nuts that Squirly had been saving for the winter and were disappearing... Finally in "Unexpected Lory", after doing some exercise with Mousy chasing him for a while Oliver returns to his house to find a nice young lady cat sleeping on his pillow! All stories are very sweet and even touching and the characters are always showing good behavior. No violence, nothing too scary or too exciting, it will keep your toddler entertained (but not over excited) during that critical bedtime period. They will love the stories and soon enough Oliver and Jumpy will be in their hearts forever.

In my kindle fire the story was presented in landscape orientation. No option to have it in portrait orientation, but this is far away from being a problem. I just thought it was worth mentioning. I highly recommend this book to the permanent library of any parent that is willing to entertain their kids during bedtime.

If you read this review, feel free to leave a comment.