I Will Surprise My Friend!-An Elephant and Piggie Book

by Mo Willems

Book Overview

Gerald is careful. Piggie is not.
Piggie cannot help smiling. Gerald can.
Gerald worries so that Piggie does not have to.

Gerald and Piggie are best friends.
In I Will Surprise My Friend!, Gerald and Piggie want to play a game and surprise each other--but the biggest surprise is the one they least expect.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1423109627
• ISBN13: 9781423109624
• Release Date: June 2008
• Publisher: Hyperion Books for Children
• Length: 64 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.7" x 9.1"
• Age Range: 3 to 5 years

Customer Reviews

Love

My students love the Elephant and Piggie series! So happy with this book and the quality.

A+++ for Piggie and Elephant

Just like the rest of the series: funny, cute, and perfect for the 6-8 age range. My 9 year old laughed at the story, but has gotten over a lot of the silliness of the humor to it. My 7 year old has read and re-read it a thousand times!

Attention-grabbing and funny gem

This book is really cute and such a joy to read! I read it myself before reading it to the Kindergarten class, and I honestly thought it was good but I wasn't overly impressed; however, when I read it out loud to the Kindergarten students, the kids absolutely LOVED it! It kept their full attention to the very end and they all laughed out loud a couple of times. It was really cute. They enjoyed it so much that they asked me to read it a second time. The kids can really relate to the story and the emotions and thought processes that the elephant and piggie go through. I am so happy that I bought this book. It is now a class favorite. I definitely recommend it.

Book Review: I Will Surprise My Friend

Scaring people is fun. There is really no getting around this fact. Kids know this better than anyone. Mo Willems knows that kids know this better than anyone. And now he's gone and written a book about it. Fitting right in with previous "Elephant & Piggie" titles, "I Will Surprise My Friend" provides a situation kids will relate to, presented with playfulness, wit, and an ace sense of humor. The story begins when Gerald (the Elephant) and Piggie come upon a squirrel who is about to surprise his friend. They like the idea so much they decide to give it a try on on each other. They creep up to opposite sides of a big rock and wait to get startled. This setup is ripe for some silliness. Gerald and Piggie both start to wonder where the other one is. They look around the rock at the same time - no one there. They walk around the rock at the same time - nothing. When our heroes finally give up and head out to find each other, they finally get the shock they were hoping for. The author's knack for getting inside the head of youngsters and seeing things from their perspective is on display here. From the way Gerald and Piggie immediately want to try something they see to how they end up waiting for the other one to scare them, beginning readers will identify with this title. Willems continues to get his PHD in emotive minimalist illustration in "I Will Surprise My Friend". Each page brings expressions and gestures that announce the mood of each character as clear as day. Similar to other titles in this series, the story is told completely through dialog in the form of word balloons. This makes it a good choice for some good ol' individual reading. And kids will definitely want to read this one - be sure to have a couple copies on hand.

Finally!!!!

An emergent reader series that is not boring! It's funny, you can actually listen to it again and again and again, which if your child is learning how to read or a struggling reader you will:) It is emergent/early reader, think level 1 with decodable words repeated and introduced perfectly. Enough to gain skill but not too much to bore. (Think Dick & Jane.......easy to decode but boring) By the author of the "Don't let the pigeon...." & "Knuffle Bunny" series and "Leonardo the terrible Monster" Mo Willems is a Caldecott winner, former Sesame Street writer and a genius! Buy them all & look forward to nighttime or anytime storytime. (I keep some of them in the car)

Lots of fun

My son (almost 3 1/2) started with "Today I Will Fly" a month ago which he LOVED. As soon as we finished reading this one I was instructed to immediately read it three more times that morning (and 2 more times that afternoon). He loves that he can retell the story based on the pictures, the expressions and the short phrases. This is definitely a favorite in our house, so much that my younger son ( 1 1/2) likes to "read" them too. It is humor that my son "gets" and adults should enjoy too.