"My Yellow Umbrella" Book Review

My Yellow Umbrella by Chris Robertson is such an adorable book. My daughter loves it and has asked me to read it several times over the past few weeks. She's great with technology, so she will often just open the Kindle app on my phone or her iPod Touch and open up the book and browse through it. She can't read by herself yet, although she does try. Lately we have been reading a lot together, except she is telling me what is happening on each page based just on the pictures, rather than me simply reading it. I love that she is trying her best to read on her own and sounds out words and reads out letters to ask me what it spells, and when she struggles she switches to deciding on her own what is happening on the page.

Bean doesn't own an umbrella like the little girl in the book, but she does have a stuffed cat that is her prized possession and can't sleep without. She likes to take her Skippyjon Jones kitty wherever she goes and loves to go on adventures with him. He is the only toy that has consistently remained her favourite toy over the years. And considering all the adventures he goes on in his books, it's only natural that she creates adventures for the two of them to go on.

After reading this book, she kept asking me if we had an umbrella. I knew we had one somewhere, so I found it and let her play with it (watching closely, of course). She imagined that it was raining and they stood under the umbrella together. Then she set up a tea party and used the umbrella to shade them from the glaring sun (ceiling light). Several times she asked to look at the book again for more ideas. I also created a yellow sensory bin filled with only yellow objects and I drew a yellow umbrella that she coloured in, painted and added glitter to.

We love the retro styled art in My Yellow Umbrella and all the adventures the girl went on with her umbrella. Our favourite line in the story is, "I step inside my yellow umbrella and float away, like a daydream drifting down a windy river." Bean stepped into the umbrella with her kitty and pretended to float away while the rain poured all around her. She kept giggling and telling me everything she could see and I enjoyed listening to her adventure progress.

(Picture from: http://www.chrisrobertsonbooks.com)

I definitely recommend this book to anyone with young children. It was so fun to read and the pictures are really great. You can tell that the character is completely in her own world and that's something I love. Imagination is very important and it's so fun to listen to children create their own stories. I love encouraging my children to follow their imaginations and discover new things along the way. This was a great book to read to my kids and I hope everyone else who reads it also enjoys it!

Chris Robertson can be found at his website and on Amazon.

If you enjoyed this post, follow along with us on Facebook and Pinterest or subscribe by email or Bloglovin'!

Disclosure: I was given this book for free in exchange for this honest review. My opinions were not swayed by the free product.