Book Review: Bessie Bibbs’ Ginormous Fibs by Chris Jones @profchrisrjones @kellyalacey @lovebookstours @igbooktours

Title: Bessie Bibbs’ Ginormous Fibs
Author: Chris Jones
Illustrator: Claire Bell
Genre: Children’s (3-7 years)
Published: 27 Oct. 2021

Buy Links: Amazon | YearntoLearn

Blurb

Have you ever met someone who claims to be great at everything? A huge boaster of their own talents? You surely have. Well in the town of Hoppity Thicket, meet Bessie: a lady so confident in herself, she’ll volunteer for anything and everything.

This loveable rogue just wants to help. The only problem is … she doesn’t help. In fact, she only manages to make things worse. A whole lot worse!

Review

Bessie Bibbs’ is a little monster, she’s cute and friendly. She likes to help her monster friends in the town which is a good, friendly thing to do, her heart is in the right place, but to help them she ends up telling them fibs, not just little ones but huge ones that lead to disaster.

First, I want to say that I loved the map of Hoppity thicket, the street names were funny and did give me a laugh and the pictures great. The book is written in rhyme which makes it even more fun to read with my five-year-old son and the illustrations are fantastic.

For a child that is only just starting to blend words together, I found that the pictures were enough for him to tell me what was happening in the book before I read the words on the page. He thoroughly enjoyed the troubles Bessie Bibbs’ got into.

At the end of the book my son and I had a chat about what happened and we both agreed that telling fibs, no matter how big or small, is not a good idea and being honest is best!

Author Bio

For as long as he can remember, Chris has had a huge passion for storytelling. When his son Jesse was a young boy, instead of reading bedtime stories, they would make up their own far-fetched tales around the fictional superhero Deadly Derek. 2021 has marked Chris’ entry into children’s picture book writing. And he’s been busy, publishing five fantastic books over the year. His talent for writing original and captivating stories around powerful messages is so evident – a rising star for sure!

Besides having a great story to tell, Chris believes the best children’s picture books have three key ingredients. The first is natural rhyme – words that feel like they should be there, not just because they match with another.
The second is tantalising words and grammar – Chris’s books will stretch a younger reader’s vocabulary, and he uses a variety of tools to make the words roll off the tongue. And the final ingredient? Well, they must have beautiful illustrations to bring the story to life. For this, he relies totally on the genius of Claire Bell and her wonderful visual translation of his verses.