Rhyming is littered throughout this story, contributing to a steady cadence; as you read about bright butterflies, flower-filled trees, and meet characters like the I Believe Bunny and Maggie Magpie. The pictures are drawn and painted with watercolors in pretty pastels of varying range. The nature scenes are filled with flowers, trees, vines, dandelions, and pinecones, as well as cute cartoon versions of animals your little one will recognize; a bunny, mouse, skunk, raccoon, squirrel, and bird.
The characters each have dialogue providing a great way for you to add entertainment to the book for your little one - assigning distinctive voices for each of the characters. After a few reads, your child may even want to do the voice of their favorite character. Sharing With You also provides a wonderful segue into speaking with your child about the importance and good feelings associated with sharing with friends. Perhaps your little one can identify with Bunny, who originally doesn't want to share his shiny rocks because they are his favorite. Does your child have a toy that they covet and don't like to share? You can point out how kind it is of Little Mouse to share his favorite flower with Bunny, and how Squirrel sacrifices his shiny ring to Maggie Magpie just to get Bunny back one of his favorite rocks. Squirrel tells Bunny, "You mean more to me than a bright, shiny ring." Bunny - and hopefully readers - ultimately learns the valuable lesson that friendship is more important than material objects.
After reading this story to my three-year-old friend, Sam, I asked him if he ever shares anything. He couldn't think of anything right away, so he asked me to go first. I told him that I recently shared my dessert with my husband. Sam looked at me incredulously, "Really? What was it?!" When he found out it was a piece of cake, he seemed even more impressed. Then it was Sam's turn again; he closed his eyes to think for a moment. A big smile spread across his face and his eyes popped open, "Oh yeah! I share my books with you!" It was my turn to be impressed.
--Audra