I bought this book for my 2 year old as we prepared for his new sibling. Some of the text is a bit too much for such a young child, but the photos lend themselves to telling a story that children of any age can understand. He liked to see the pictures of tiny babies, and also liked to hear how the older children felt about the babies. I think this book really helped him to know what to expect. We have lots of "new baby" books, but I feel this one is superior - photographs rather than illustrations really help young children know what to expect.

I read this book many many times to my children as they expected new siblings (we have three kids). Now I am buying it for my nephew. The reason this book is different from other "New Baby" books is that it gives young children a voice for the often strong negative feelings of having a new sibling. Young kids, preschoolers and younger, can't put words to their emotions. This book shows young children who are angry at their new baby brother or sister, feel they are being abandoned by their parents, feel ignored, feel they don't get any attention anymore, can't stand the sound of crying, hate the smell of diapers that need changing, and more. Your child may not tell you he/she feels these things, but believe me, they all do.
Many parents think that if they keep telling their older child how wonderful the new baby is, and what a big boy/girl their older child is, and "be nice to your new baby," that it will sink in. Well it doesn't work. Older kids are very hurt/threatened/scared but the entry of a new baby in the home. Many liken it to the feelings a woman would have in her husband came home one evening with a new, younger wife and said, "Look what I brought you! Don't worry, I will still love you, even though I love my new wife very much, and I will still have time for you, even though I won't have as much. I want you to love my new wife just like I do, and help her out, because you are older and can do more." HA! Once a young child can see that he/she is not alone in having negative feelings, and can put words to those emotions, they can work on them, explain them to you, and believe it or not, they tend to abate.

We bought this for our daughter (along with the author's book "I'm going to be a big sister") and our daughter loves it. She loves looking at the photos of older siblings interacting with their newborn siblings. In fact, our daughter already wants to be involved with changing the diaper and giving baths.

Lets see how she feels in a few years when her sibling is three and follows her everywhere.

A whimsical story of Mamma Sue and Pappa Joe and their big busy farm. With word of a fancy relative coming to visit, a hearty stew is cooked up and everyone helps, a little too much.

Busy families will get a kick out of the humerous tone of this book. Children will giggle at the building, peppery, bubbly pot of stew.

R.W. Alley does a grand of visually depicting the harried farm family.

The story

This book is set around a farming family, Papa Joe, Mama Sue, Sam, Toby and Jane. One day they learned that rich Aunt Tootie was coming for dinner so the family set out to clean up the house, the yard, do the laundry but most importantly, first start to make the stew. "We may be poor said Mama Sue. But we can cook up a hearty stew as good as Tooties ever tasted."

While the family was doing the chores and the stew was cooking, Mama Sue remembered it needed some pepper. One by one she asked each family member to add a pinch of pepper, but each one was busy with his or her chores.

However, as each one finished a chore, he or she went in and put in a pinch of pepper. Of course, Mama Sue didn't know that so when she was done with her chores she added 4 pinches to make it "hearty."

Aunt Tootie came and was given the best chair and the plate without the crack and waited for her to taste what they thought would be a delicious stew. Of course it wasn't and in the way of "Who put the cookie in the cookie jar?" She asked, "Who put the pepper in the pot?" and of course each one answered "I put the pepper in the pot!"

Everyone got a good laugh out of it once they realized what had happened and much to the family's surprise Aunt Tootie offered to make an omelet - luckily there was no more pepper in the house!

The illustrations:

The pictures are colorful and adorable. There is a lot going on in each picture showing what the family is doing. We see each family member doing their chores and putting in pinches of pepper. The pictures are simple but detailed at the same time. They are the kind of pictures that children want to look at for a long time taking in each thing they see.

What the children thought:

I read this book to first graders primarily and they love it. Do you like to hear children laugh. This book will make them laugh and giggle. It is really very cute and very funny. It is a good starting to read book with simple words such as pot, water, chores, clothes, and clean.

To make a lesson out of it, we talk about the chores they do around the house and that usually begins a whole discussion of chores!

But Wait There is more to this book:

1. There are 2 pages on "Food Funnies" with questions like "What do you call a chicken from outer space?" The answer: An eggs-traterrestrial. The children love doing these riddles and end up thinking up their own, of course.

2. There are 4 excellent pages on "Safety rules for kids in the kitchen." The children are taught what to do before they start cooking, while they are cooking, what to do when they finish cooking, and important things to remember.

This chapter is an excellent way to end a funny book. It is a serious discussion, but the children don't mind. They enjoy sharing what they know about kitchen safety and how they help in the kitchen - what they can and cannot do. I often have them sit in a circle and go around the room talking about kitchen safety if they want.
3. The last chapter is The Usborne Round the World Cookbook with a recipe from Latin America, Japan and India. They are simple recipes that young children can help you make and for the children on the older end of the age range, with supervision, they can make a Cucumber raita themselves.

My thoughts:

I really like this book and would have it in my house if my children were small. It is a book that you can read over and over again as well as having practical information in it.

When I was younger, I loved this book! My parents at bedtime had to hide it from me, so I would not turn on the light and begin to read it again! It was one of my first books I learned to read. I still have it and I enjoy reading it now to my two year old brother. Who Put the Pepper In The Pot? Is a great classic in my family, and a great beginner book.

This is one of the older Magic School Bus books which has layers of detail in it. You can chose how many layers to read, depending on the child's interest and on the time you have available for reading.

The obvious layer is the text. There is plenty of information from just reading the text. If you want to add more, read the dialogue between the characters, written cartoon style in balloons. The most detail would come from the children's sketches and notes that are in the (very wide) margins.

I like the scheme of taking the children through the system and coming out the other end. Children usually find the fantasy of changing size to be fascinating as well. To my knowledge, the book is factual and fairly well up to date.

As a seamstress, I love Ms Frizzle's clothing and accessories.

I taught a unit on water to three second grade classes this year and this book helped the students understand where our city drinking water comes from, how it is treated for impurities and how it gets moved through the system and into our homes. The pictures and text are informative as well as humorous and entertaining. This book kept the students' attention and promoted discussiom. I highly reccommend it!

When their inimitable school bus goes on the fritz (or should I say, "frizz"?,) the students get worried: this is one field trip they don`t want to miss. They`re trying to give their unique teacher a surprise birthday party and need to get to the bakery for the cake. When they finally reach their destination, the unstable bus suddenly shrinks, with everyone in it, to the size of a moth. They dodge the baker`s fly swatter and Ms Frizzle while using kitchen chemistry to get the job done. My boys and I miss the volume of information and mini "reports" of the original series, but they still learn and have fun at the same time. They have a new respect for cooking, as edible chemistry. And the baking soda experiment at the back of the book is a rainy day standby in our household: we love the fizz from the Frizz!

I liked it because the baker thought the magic school bus was a moth.

Humorous, engaging, and packed with information, this best-selling science series is aptly illustrated with lively pictures. My kids adore the cartoon bubbles and short "reports" from the students in the story. Their teacher, Ms Frizzle, is an amazing character who challenges her pupils and leads them on amazing fieldtrips. Her equally fascinating wardrobe changes with each subject and situation. All this has made it a read-aloud favorite since my eldest was three. In ON THE OCEAN FLOOR, the inimitable school bus undergoes several transformations as it transports us to and through the ocean; from tidal pools, down to the deep ocean floor, and, after a brief visit to a tropical island, home. I was touched by the inclusion of a specimen of fish, well known in my home state of Hawaii. However, I must say OUR lifeguards are nothing like Lenny, who, unlike the rest of the book, is definitely lacking on several points. Real lifeguards patrol their strip of beach and keep watch over the waters from their perch. They also patiently answer my children`s questions about the local sea life (most recently, about jellyfish) and just as patiently patch up even the smallest of "boo-boos." Minus one star for Lenny.

Another triumph for the Magic School Bus series. The class takes a field trip to the ocean (not the beach; the ocean) where they learn about the wondrous creatures that live there. Everything from plankton to mammals, including the strange lifeforms around hot water vents, is touched on in this fabulous book. The inserts on each page from the kids' projects add valuable information. The science is current and presented in an entertaining and easy-to-understand manner. Even though the series is designed for older kids, my two-year-old loves the pictures and carries the book with him everywhere.

This book was about Miss Frizzle's class. Miss Frizzle's classes are always taking wild journeys everyone. On minute they are in the classroom like a normal class, the next they are somewhere very unusual. In this book they traveled inside the earth to study about it. The book talks about all the things inside the Earth and there are great explanations to many questions that children might have about the earth.
I like this book because it teaches children a lot about what the earth is made up of and it does it in such a way that children will stay interested and amused. A lot of children are really fond of science and things and this book teaches them about science in a fun way. Even children that don't really enjoy science would like this book because it's a fun book. Things happen that wouldn't really happen in real life so in a way it is fantasy like and a lot of children would like that.
I think the author was trying to teach children something and do it in such a way that it is fun. They will enjoy the story of the class traveling into the middle of the earth but there is a lot of science in there for the children to learn also.

This storyis about a class of students that is bord then one day they all go on a journey inside the earth and the kids have all these questions that all get answered. the reason I like this book so much is because it tells so much about the earth in a way that is fun for the students.

This book is a great book to teach kids about the inside of the earth, and other scientific stuff. It gets your imagination flowing! Its fun and interesting; I always loved the Magic School Bus series! Ms. Frizzle is so funny!

I feel that the book Bully Trouble will give kids a bost in

their self-covendince they will fell that they can stand up to

any one. It shows kids that they dont have to result to

violence as the only answer. I think it will give kids a

different way to settle thier differnces and teach them to

stand up for their selves.

Arlo and Robby were good friends. They hanged out together but they also encountered a bully together. The story gives insight to children that life still moves on even if they are bullied. Reading the story, children learn to deal with bully troubles through support from their friendship. I an not comfortable with how these two boys ended their bully torubles. What if children apply the strategy to their real-life bully troubles but do not get the same desirable results? I suggest adults participation to discuss with young readers different potential endings that the story might have conclued. A fair and lucky result may not be what actually happens in a real life situation.

Two best friends are being bullied by a boy who steals things and teases them. The two best friends don't like him. They trick the bully. I think that the book was awesome. It could become number 1 one day.

My husband and I are currenly awaiting a referal to adopt a child. We have been looking for books that can assist us in talking to our child about his or her adoption. We purchased this book thinking it would foster discussions about our child's own adoption story. Although the book is layed out very well, and is written in a very simple language, we are returning it. It actually breaks our heart to do so because it us such an excellent book, but one page depeticts the birth of a child. It discussed a woman's uterus squeezing and pushing a baby out. There are drawings on the page of an actual birth. We do plan to discuss the facts of life with our children, but do not feel that it is neccessary for a pre school age child to see drawings of a baby actually being born. I have no problem using the proper words with a child and telling him that a child grows in a birth mother's uterus, not her tummy. But sharing with a child what the actual process of birth is like needs to be saved for when he (or she) is older.

I am an adoptive mom of an 11 month old son, who I adopted at birth. This is the first adoption book for children that I've bought -- in others that I've looked at, the story was too different from our family's story. However, this book makes it clear that Samantha is telling the story of her adoption, and that the stories of other adopted kids may be different -- in fact Samantha invites her "listeners" to talk about their own adoptions. This way of writing the story makes me comfortable about reading it to my son, even though the book features a 2-parent family, and I'm a single mom. I also give the book points for using the word "uterus" rather than "tummy". I think the latter creates confusion in young children -- they imagine the unborn baby swimming in a sea of half-digested food. Since we need to explain to children that babies grow in a "special place" anyway, why not use the correct term for it? (if you think your child can't handle a 3-syllable word, then how about "womb"?). I also disagree with the reviewer who thought the illustrations of a baby growing in a uterus, and the descriptions of birth, were inappropriate for young children -- by the time children are 3 or 4, they start noticing pregnant women, and if you tell them "there's a baby in there", the natural next question for them to ask is "how does it get out?" -- I think this book does a really good job of explaining this in simple, not-too-graphic, language that a young child can understand.

I also like the fact that the birth mother is at least mentioned (though that term is not introduced) -- an awful lot of adoption books feature a magical phone call from an adoption agency that has "found" a baby for the would-be adoptive parents, without any mention of where the baby came from. However, my small quibble is that I would have liked to see even a little more discussion of the birth mother -- she appears in this book as not much more than a uterus -- I'd like a book where the adoptive parent(s) actually meet the birthparent(s) -- but then, maybe I'm still looking for a book that exactly mirrors my family's story, since ours is an open adoption with visitation.

Anyway, I think this book can be a good start point for discussions with your adopted child, even if your child's adoption story is somewhat different from Samantha's.

While my sons are not adopted, they have friends and extended family that are. This book was a good introduction to them to the concept. It's very straightforward and written in such a way that it could apply to a lot of different adoption situation---details are not that specific just to Samantha. It is very upbeat and cheerful. Just a note---the book does assume the kids that are hearing it are adopted, and it has questions like "Do you know how old you were when you were adopted?" which confused my sons a little! So be aware of this if you are reading it just for general awareness! The pictures are cute, bright and with neat details.

All children are different. My daughter started using her potty the day after I first read this book to her. She seems to be able to relate well to the characters and situations. I would prefer if it was a little more sturdy like a board book...after 2 weeks it's just about disintegrated from use.

My daughter and I love this book! It gets straight to the point, has great pictures for my daughter, and is realistic. I checked out the library's copy so often I figured I needed to buy my own.

This is the best potty book we've read--and my son and I have read them all. The introduction is helpful to parents, and the progression of the toddlers in the story from diapers to underpants was realistic (for example, they still wear diapers at night).

Maybe I didn't get it since I am not a New Yorker. I don't really care that this couple wasn't married, but the lack of love between them was such a turnoff. Peter seemed to have a hard time believing that he had something to do with the pregnancy at all...he kept saying how he was being dragged to doctors and forced to do this and that....My conclusion is that not all writers should write....

The authors have managed to capture the bizarre nuances of daily life in New York while overlaying this with the difficulties and emotions attached to a first pregnancy. As resident aliens, my wife and I have recently been dealing with the similar issues associated with the upcoming birth of our first child.

This light hearted look at the processes required to give birth in the New York also provided us with forwarning of the costs, bureaucracy and personalities that are inevitably encountered along the way.

Joanna and Peter are far from the 'smug marrieds' Helen Fielding talks about but they are just as engaging and enjoyable as Bridget Jones. Their writing makes you feel like one of their best friends. They share their daily observations on pregnancy and impending parenthood with honesty and wit.

Read it and then share with all your friends!