Title: A Ferret Named Phil
Author: William Reimer
Artist: James Moore
Genre: Australia / Bullying / Animals / Trickery / Friendship
Year Published: 2015
Year Read: 2017
Publisher: Liberty Road Publishing
Source: eARC (Author)
Content Rating: Ages 5+ (Bullying)
Buy on: Amazon // Book Depository
I
would like to thank the author William Reimer for providing me a copy of this book in
exchange for an honest review.
For years, bullying has been a major concern in many schools and there
would be discussions about how children can handle being bullied in school in a
nonviolent way. Well, when the author William Reimer gave me a copy of his
children’s book called “A Ferret Named
Phil” which deals with bullying, of course I was extremely interested in
checking this book out since I wanted to read more books that dealt with
bullying and how the characters deal with it and this book was definitely a
pleasant surprise for me!
One day, a ferret named Phil wanted to take his friend
Jane out for a picnic by the lake. Unfortunately,
there was a scary hawk named Hugo who was always bullying Phil and the hawk
suddenly decided to show up at Phil and Jane’s picnic to bully Phil once more. Phil tried to stand up to Hugo, but Hugo
ended up knocking Phil and Jane’s picnic into the lake and kidnaps Jane to
teach Phil a lesson.
Can
Phil save Jane from Hugo?
Read
this book to find out!
Wow! William
Reimer did a fantastic job at writing this book as it details the ugliness
of bullying and how one must defend themselves against bullying. I loved the way that William Reimer made this book both intense and uplifting as I was
interested in seeing how Phil would stand up to Hugo, while also being shocked
at the extremes that Hugo is willing to go with his bullying which includes
kidnapping Jane just to teach Phil a lesson.
I also loved the fact that Phil never uses violence to stand up to Hugo
as he relies on his wit to deal with Hugo, which sends a positive message about
how violence never solves a bullying problem and that you should use your wits
to deal with bullying. James Moore’s artwork is truly gorgeous
to look at as all the animal characters look realistic and I loved the
watercolor illustrations as they give the artwork a luscious and beautiful
feel. Probably my favorite artwork in
this book are the illustrations of both Phil and Hugo themselves as Phil looks
like an adorable ferret with a green scarf around his neck, which makes him
look unique; while Hugo is terrifying to look at as he towers over both Phil
and Jane and has red eyes which makes him look menacing.
Parents should know that there are some intense scenes
in this book, especially regarding the bullying that Phil and Jane went
through. Probably the scene that would
scare some children the most would be the scene where Hugo kidnaps Jane as they
might worry about whether or not Jane is going to make it through this
ordeal. Parents might want to discuss
with their children about bullying and how it has negative consequences on
people and how they should handle it.
Overall, “A Ferret
Named Phil” is a fantastic book about dealing with bullying and learning to
stand up for yourself when being bullied.
I would recommend this book to children ages five and up since the intense
scenes would scare some smaller children.
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