Tuesday, June 7, 2016

Book "Oliver and Jumpy - Stories 43-45" 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!

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 Odesk, 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 43 - Flying Carpet, 44 - Birthday Party, and 45 - Magic Berries. It is an excellent gift for parents with children under 8 as suggested by the author. The book is beautifully illustrated by Mario Tereso (Stories 43), Vikas Upadhyay (Story 44) and Maycee Ann Reyes (story 45) 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 "Flying Carpet", Oliver goes to Africa to save another princess, but he does not go alone. He takes with him his friend Jumpy! and the adventure starts when they reach Egypt and they receive a flying carpet!. In the "Birthday Party", Oliver is greeted when arriving home with a surprising birthday party organized by his friends. Finally in "Magic Berries", Oliver, Jumpy and Joey are back into Ghost Castle and Joey find some berries and eat them. That causes some side effects. Trying to correct that, he eats another variate of berries and something different happen! Finally they find wood-fairy that takes care of everything and makes things go back to normal! 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 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.

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

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