Tales for Sharing

Farmyard Fun for Everyone

When I wrote about my love for the Usborne book company, I realized this particular book deserved an entry all to itself. All three of my kids have loved The Complete Book of Farmyard Tales. It captures all their attention at the same time, despite the four year age difference between my oldest and youngest, and diverse interests among them.

The book comes with a CD so you don’t even have to read it yourself, though you do have to have a functioning CD player (which is hard to come by in our house). It contains twenty stories featuring the same two main characters, Poppy and Sam, who live on Apple Tree Farm with their parents and pets. The book includes a permanently attached bookmark, which works great for marking your place. I’ve only read through the entire book in one sitting a couple of times (and it’s a great way to kill a peaceful hour stuck at home with multiple kids).

It features a small yellow duck hidden on each page. It has shorter text on the top of the page where you can still get the entire story but in less time, say for instance, when the kids should’ve been in bed ten minutes ago. The stories stand independently, so you can read as many or as few as time allows. Any of the Farmyard Tales books are fabulous, so you can pick and choose based on the cost, kids’ interests, and which ones you already own, but I love having them all at hand in one big book, so we’re never hunting for the only missing story.