Martin and the Mysterious Thingamabobs! by Elizabeth Davies & Lily Fossett – The Strawberry Post

A book review of a fun and interactive children’s picture book about a boy who discovers something outside his bedroom window and it begins a strange tale where odd things happen and where readers have a chance of influencing the story’s outcome.  Part of the Stickery Stories series.

About Martin and the Mysterious Thingamabobs!

Title: Martin and the Mysterious Thingamabobs! (Stickery Stories)
Author: Elizabeth Davies
Illustrator: Lily Fossett
Publisher: Kennedy publishing
Genre: Children’s picture book, Activity – stickers
Book format reviewed: Paperback
Sweet Strawberries:

Description: Martin is about to have an EXTREMELY weird and very FUN adventure! Make your own story by picking whichever WACKY WORDS and SILLY STICKERS you like to finish each page, then enjoy your unique adventure with Martin, again and again!
A great activity for children and grown-ups to do together to develop imagination and vocabulary.

*Free copy provided for review…

My review and thoughts on Martin and the Mysterious Thingamabobs!

This is a very fun picture book which allows children to create the story. Martin is in bed asleep when he hears a giant roar coming from outside. He decides to take a peak out of his window and discovers something gigantic, but what did Martin find and what strange things will happen next? This paperback is filled with thick glossy pages of some brilliant illustrations and text.

I love how creative this book is. The story begins with Martin waking up to a loud noise and checking what created it. But while we know the thing outside is gigantic we don’t know what it is until a sticker is added to the page. This book is filled with pages of story where stickers, which you can find at the back of the book, are used to create the missing parts of the tale. For example at the beginning the text explains that in the garden is a ‘ginormous, towering’ the next word is missing asking for a ‘word sticker’ to be placed there with a visual illustration showing Martin looking out at his garden with a place for a ‘picture sticker’ which will show the thing that’s out there. There are two choices for this page’s stickers which are: frog or toaster.

The story continues like this on every double page, inviting kids to invent the story according to the choices of stickers that they can add. Each page that has a word followed by a picture sticker will have two or three options, meaning that children can create a story that is more unique and different from other children’s versions of the same book. The word stickers help teach children the different words and I like how fun and wacky the story gets with so many silly things occurring throughout Martin’s adventure.

The illustrations are brilliant, very fun, bright and colourful and I like how silly some of the creatures and things look especially on the stickers. The last page of the book gives kids a blank area to stick all the left over stickers if they want to as more than half of the stickers will be left over. I don’t think this page is big enough for all the left over stickers, though it’s a nice touch. Overall a great and fun picture book which kids can enjoy being creative with and then read back their creation again and again.

What do you think of this book?  Do you like sticker books?  Have you read any books where the reader can get interactive with the story?  Let me know what you think in the comments below 🙂