Review: When your kid's room looks like a scene from "Hoarders"
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 12 17, 2013
To be honest, my own things are not always well organized even now as an adult, and it was almost as bad when I was a kid. At least my mom was adamant that I keep my room reasonably clean with my stuff put away. In the story, young Tommy's room was a disaster area. When he started trying to organize the mess, as his mom had ordered, the mountain of toys fell on him and he was suddenly transported to the Lost Toys Land, the place where lost toys go until they find their way home. There, Tommy ran into Rocky, his toy spider monkey. Rocky was the only one there who could show Tommy the way home, but he was playing capricious and hard to get. Would Tommy find his way home, or was he fated to live there forever with all of his lost toys?There's a valuable lesson in the story about learning to be organized and taking responsibility for one's actions. It's a lesson that should be learned early in life, or one might find oneself in an episode of the "Hoarders" TV series!"Don't Let Rocky Get Away!" is a nice example of a "chapter book," which is a story book intended for intermediate readers, typically ages 7-10. Unlike picture books for beginning readers, a chapter book tells the story primarily through text instead of pictures. This book does have illustrations, but the illustrations only complement the story, they don't tell the story as completely as those in books for beginning readers.