Room on The Broom *kids* in Reviews

Room on The Broom is a kids books by Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Axel Scheffler. It was also made into a short animated film with Simon Pegg (from Shawn of the Dead) as the narrator. We borrowed the book from the library and then stumbled on the movie when it was shown on tv a few weekends ago.

The book first. Sakura really enjoyed it. She asked for me to read it every night until we returned it. I thought the illustrations were good, Sakura ilked to point at some of the details in the pictures (for example the dragon in the background flying away). It was a kids' book so nothing particularly deep about it. It had a good rhythm to it which made it pretty easy to read, although one or two of the rhymes did come out a little forced and awkward. Not too bad overall though. There was some repetition (the witch tapped her broom and Woosh they were gone) which Sakura enjoyed because she could predict some of the lines and I would pause to let her say them so she was participated more actively in reading the book. I looked for it again last time I was at the library but couldn't find it. I may have to seriously consider buying it for her.

I liked the movie even better than the book. It is short, probably only about 25 minutes, so good for Sakura's short attention span. I love that Simon Pegg is the narrator. He does a really good job. And they translated it to the big screen very well. It is just a kids' picture book so when I first watched it I wasn't sure how they would stretch it out to make a movie. They threw in some things that added depth to the story and enhanced the experience. For example in the book it isn't really clear that the cat doesn't want the other creatures to join him and the witch. In the movie everytime an animal joins them the cat makes a big deal out of trying to keep the broom away and shaking his head. Also they added in a little backstory on a couple of the animals. The green bird has a little flashback of being rejected because she is different than the other birds. It just made the story a little deeper and more meaningful. It also wasn't all loud and annoying like so many other kids' shows or movies.