THE MISERABLE MOON / THE TERRIBLY TALL TRIANGLE / THE XENOPHOBIC XYLOPHONE / THE UGLY GREEN UMBRELLA / THE ZANY ZEBRA
By Wong Ching Hsia
Illustrated by Tan Vay Fern
Publisher: MPH

The five books which can be bought as a series or individually are picture books meant for toddlers and preschoolers. Some of the books are written in rhymes. Each book has a different theme – nature, musical instruments, shapes, colours and animals.

The Miserable Moon is about the moon being sad because when it's out everyone else seems to be asleep. It soon finds some new friends who are awake at night.

The Terribly Tall Triangle is about a very tall triangle who can't seem to play with the other shapes because she is just too tall. She travels the world until she finds a place in which she truly belongs.

In The Xenophobic Xylophone, Xavier, the xylophone, doesn't want to play with the other musical instruments until he discovers what beautiful music they make together and has a change of heart.

The Ugly Green Umbrella is about Ursula, an “ugly” green umbrella who seems to be unwanted until a special customer arrives at the Umbrella Shop.

The Zany Zebra tells the tale of Zabby the zebra who is bored of being a zebra and decides to try being a cheetah, grasshopper, monkey, parrot, polar bear, flamingo and even a dolphin. You can imagine what happens in the end.

Wong and Tan have done their research and made the books presentable, exciting and even interesting.

Tan uses such lovely colours and the characters in the books have been drawn with such delightful facial expressions that you instantly fall in love with them. I especially liked the musical instruments in The Xenophobic Xylophone. Their hats, hair and faces really matched the countries they are from. I'm sure children and adults alike will love the illustrations.

I also liked the way the text was inserted into the graphics in the various parts of each page.

Wong has done a lovely job coming up with an interesting storyline in each book, The “Fun Facts” inserted in each page is a bonus. Parent and child will be pleasantly surprised by what they learn in these books. For example, did you know that xylophones originated from South-East Asia in the 9^th century? I didn't know that one, either.

These are great books to keep young children entertained while educating them on some fun facts about animals, colours, shapes, etc.

These books will appeal to children of all nationalities even though some of the characters look Asian.

These are wonderful books for first time author-illustrator Wong and Tan. I hope they come up with more children's books. They team up very well and the result is some really stunningly gorgeous books.

Highly recommended.