After the Storm (Percy the Park Keeper Series)by Nick Butterworth

Age: 2 plus

Book Review of After the Storm by Nick Butterworth

After the Storm (Nick Butterworth)

Percy the Park Keeper is a picture book series, written by Nick Butterworth, all the stories in the series revolve around a friendly, lovable park keeper Percy and his animal friends foxes, mice, hedgehogs, squirrels, badgers and rabbits.

The greatest advantage of this book is that it helps in learning and exposing a lot of cross-curricular topics such as seasons, animals, nature, and kindness.

The story

Percy the parkkeeper is not sleeping well because there is a big storm outside, and heavy rain is pouring. He didn't fear because according to him light lit up the park.

But he had a fear, he feared the status outside his hut in the park, and he was unable to sleep, The next morning Percy woke up early, filled up his wheelbarrow with all the equipment needed to repair the damages and started inspecting.

There was not much damage except a big oak tree which was completely blown away, it was Percy's favourite, his animal friends lived there, and Percy was upset. He went and met his animal friends, everyone was unhappy and sitting under the fallen tree. Percy consoles them and takes them in search of a new place to live.

Did Percy find a place to live for his animal friends? Were all his animal friends happy? This is what the rest of the story is about.

Review:

It is a beautifully illustrated story to teach friendship, teamwork, and environmental awareness. A story to learn about different animals and their habitats.

Here are some activities suggested to use in the classrooms or to do with your kids after reading the story :

For toddlers and preschoolers

1. A day in the park - After reading the book, take the kid to a nearby park for a nature walk and help them explore nature - trees, bugs, leaves, flowers etc, collect some samples and create a scrapbook.

2. Animals and their habitats - make small printouts/cutouts of animals in the story, and discuss the animals and their habitats.

3. Puppet show/ pretend play - Make animal finger puppets or toilet roll puppets and do a puppet show, invite some neighbourhood kids for more fun, or make a pretend play based on the story

For older kids :

1. Vocabulary wall: Make a vocabulary wall and introduce all the vocabulary related to the park and animals.

2. Little authors. : Ask the kids to predict what has happened after the storm, Provoke their writing abilities, and help them build a story of their own.

Also, don't miss the big fold-out poster at the end of the book which shows all the animals in their tree.

There are around 12 books in the series, collect them all and give a head start in reading cross-curricular story books to the kids.