HOME SCHOOL BOOK REVIEW
Book: Clip-Clop, Tippity-Tap: French Vocabulary on the Farm
Author: Kim Chatel
Illustrator: Kathleen Bullock
Publisher: Guardian Angel Publishing Inc., 2011
ISBN-13: 978-1-61633-136-8 (soft cover)
ISBN-10: 1-61633-136-4 (soft cover)
ISBN-13: 978-1-61633-137-5 (eBook)
ISBN-10: 1-61633-137-2 (eBook)
Related websites: www.kimchatel.com (author), www.KathleenBullock.com (illustrator), www.guardianangelpublishing.com (publisher)
Language level: 1 (nothing objectionable)
Reading level: Ages 5-9
Rating: 5 stars (EXCELLENT)
Reviewed by Wayne S. Walker
For more information e-mail homeschoolbookreview@gmail.com
Chatel, Kim. Clip-Clop, Tippity-Tap: French Vocabulary on the Farm (published in 2011 by Guardian Angel Publishing Inc., 12430 Tesson Ferry Rd., #186, St. Louis, MO 63128). What would it be like to be an animal on a French farm? On the Farm La Pomme there are all kinds of animals. Dogs bark warnings. Cats chase mice. Cows are milked. Roosters wake everyone. Mini-Moi is a miniature horse who’s too small to do things like the other horses. He can’t pull the hay cart like the work horses Amande and Pistache. He can’t plow the fields like the Percheron horses Babiole and Bidule. And he can’t round up sheep like the colorful paint mare Couci-Couca. But when the cat needs to carry her kittens back to the barn, the peacock hurt is foot, the piglet wanders to far from the farm, the lamb is late for its shearing, the hen lays her eggs in a silly place, and the mailman has some envelopes for Farmer Yvette, is there anything that Mini-Moi can do to help?
Many colleges require that incoming students have taken two years of a foreign language. Studies have shown that the younger children can be introduced to a foreign language, the better they can learn it. So if your young ones are interested in French, this is a book for you. Author Kim Chatel, whose Rainbow Fish was winner of the 2009 Epic Children’s Fiction Award, uses an appealing story about a small horse, only six hands tall, to introduce common French words and phrases to early readers. Every page contains several French words with their English meanings placed along side those items in the pictures by illustrator Kathleen Bullock. In the back, there is a glossary which gives English and French animal sounds, the translation of some common French phrases used in the book, and the meanings of the names of the animals. Both my wife and I studied French in high school and used various books to introduce our boys to French when they were small. Clip-Clop, Tippity-Tap is a cute resource for this purpose.
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