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Review & Giveaway: The Perfect Sofa

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Today we feature a sneak peek at The Perfect Sofa by Fifi Kuo, publishing in April 2019. Read on for a review of the book and a giveaway to win your own copy.

 

Book Title: The Perfect Sofa (available here)

Author/Illustrator: Fifi Kuo

Publisher: Boxer Books

Publication Date: April 2019

Suitable For: EYFS & KS1

Reviewed By: Jenny Holder (@JennyHolderLiv), Reading Coordinator at Liverpool Learning Partnership

 

Review

 

Panda and Penguin are searching for the perfect sofa. You would think that this should be a simple task but there’s much more to it than just walking into a shop and purchasing one! There’s just so much to consider- size, style, colour, texture, level of comfort, price. This charming and humorous picture book by Fifi Kuo follows the two friends as they visit a furniture showroom and test out a range of possible sofas.

 

The text of the book is carefully chosen and is purposefully kept quite sparse, meaning that the illustrations take the lead in telling the story. Fifi Kuo’s depiction of their facial expressions and body language really helps to make the reader aware of how frustrating a task this really is! Their exasperated faces really made me laugh out loud whilst also sympathising with them. I think most people who have been through the rigmarole of shopping for a new piece of furniture will be able to sympathise with the difficulties that Panda and Penguin face in this book.

The different seats that the characters try out are beautifully depicted in a combination of watercolours and coloured pencils, drawing attention to the textures and styles of each sofa. This would be a great text for first introducing the concept of ‘adjectives’ to young children, asking them to find other suitable words to describe each of the sofas.

 

Some of the seats are reminiscent of artistic periods or particular artists and provide an opportunity to introduce children to the original works and to encourage them to design their own seats based on artistic styles. It’s also a wonderful text for introducing the concept of personal taste and would be fantastic stimulus for a P4C (Philosophy for Children) style discussion of whether we should all like the same things and why we prefer particular styles. The ending allows for a deeper discussion regarding familiarity and comfort.

 

This is a beautifully presented picture book with incredibly charming characters and an ostensibly simple story with hidden depths that you can explore through discussion.

 

You can order The Perfect Sofa online or from your local bookshop or library.

 

****Book Giveaway****

 
 

Thanks to the publishers at Boxer Books, we have 3 copies of The Perfect Sofa to give away to our followers!

 

To enter, simply follow @booksfortopics on Twitter and retweet the giveaway tweet by 11.59pm Tuesday 19th March 2019 (T&Cs here).

 

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You can order The Perfect Sofa online or from your local bookshop or library.

 
 
 
 

Many thanks to the publisher for sending us a copy of this book and to Jenny for reviewing it.

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