Sheep in a Jeep

All Ages

Birth - 12 months

Sheep in a Jeep

by Nancy Shaw
Illustration by Margot Apple

What could be better than a misadventure from that rambunctious flock of sheep in board-book form? In Sheep in a Jeep, the hapless flock goes for a drive in the country. With these muttonheads, a normal outing is sure to turn into a joyous lark. Rhyming text and disarming illustrations make these shear delights!

Age: 3 Year-olds | Title: Sheep in a Jeep | Author: Nancy Shaw | Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Why we chose this book

Have you ever seen five sheep pile into one jeep? Here's your chance! Your child will love reading and watching the shenanigans of five rollicking sheep unfold over the pages. The book is small with board pages so your little one can control the speed of the action by holding the book in their lap and turning the pages themselves. Each page consists of one short sentence, often including a sound-effect word and repetition, and always including rhymes. The pictures are fun drawings of silly cartoon sheep expressing their emotions through malleable faces and body language.

This story will likely get some giggles out of your little reader, whether it's at the picture of all the sheep barely squeezed in to the jeep, when the driver sheep forgets to steer, or the seemingly necessary action at the end of the book (I'll keep that a surprise!). Your use of voice inflection and sound effects will make the reading that much more fun for your child. With the short sentences - sometimes just two words - you can begin pointing to words and then the corresponding objects on the page to start showing associations between words and pictures.

My three-year-old friend, Sam, enjoyed this book enough to have me read it three times through! By the third time, I would pause every time it was time to say either "sheep" or "jeep" and let him fill in the blank. He didn't always get it right, but with only two choices, he did pretty well. He would watch me while I read and wait for me to make eye contact - his queue to fill in the blank. Sam was smiling the whole time and gigged every time he got it right.

--Audra