Story time: Dangerous by Tim Warnes

Mole loves to stick labels on all sorts of things. He labels everything: frogs, toadstools, ladybirds, even poo! One day he stumbles upon an enormous strange lumpy-bumpy thing. Suddenly the strange bulgy thing yawns, and scares Mole who makes the quick assumption that this thing needs to be labelled as "Dangerous". But is this big lumpy-bumpy thing really that dangerous? 

This book is a wonderful tool for introducing rich vocabulary to your little one. Mole uses all sorts of adjectives to describe the lumpy-bumpy thing like “dotty, stripy and rough”. As I was reading this book with my son, he had lots of questions about what the different words meant. So, we went on a scavenger hunt around the house to find examples of all the adjectives and nouns that he wasn’t familiar with. We had a ton of fun.

We have the book in french, so this picture is in french! This is my favourite page. So many words to describe this strange big rough thing…

This book also teaches a valuable lesson in judgement-making. Mole is quick to judge the lumpy-bumpy thing, but the lumpy-bumpy thing doesn’t deserve that judgement. It teaches that making those kinds of superficial snap judgements, based on the way something looks, is not only unfair but can also be very hurtful. It is important for us to learn to look beyond “looks”, and see people for who they really are.

The colourful illustrations, diverse language, and deeper meaning behind that language make this book a definite must-read. My son absolutely loves it, and I hope your child will too.

As a bonus, the paperback edition comes with over 100 free stickers!

Some ideas for activities to go with the book:

• Prepare a scavenger hunt. Write down adjectives and nouns your little one has to find (for example, “find something bumpy”).
• Get your child to write labels to describe their favourite plushies (for the little ones that can’t write yet, describe them together).
• Have your child write labels or get a parent or sibling to write them, and place them around the house.
• Look at pictures of moles and crocodiles, or visit the zoo to see real ones!

Happy reading everyone :)