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My children enjoyed Tim Johnson’s Bosley Builds A Tree House so when he asked if we’d be interested in reading his newest dual-language book, Bosley Discovers The Waterfall, we replied right away. I knew it was on the way, but the children did not.
When the package arrived, I had a look at the forecast and saw that there was a fine day that week that corresponded with Phil’s day off. We hadn’t yet made it to a nearby waterfall so we took the opportunity to have a morning barbecue there. The children and I made leaf rubbings while Phil prepared the meal.
After our hunger was satiated, we set off for the short stroll to the waterfall. We hadn’t been with both children fully walking, so this was exciting for them both to be able to roam around. We’d brought some crayons at Tristan’s request as he wanted to draw a picture of the waterfall.
When the beauty of our surroundingsfilled us, I told the children there was a surprise for them. They sat on a rock and opened the package to reveal Bosley Discovers The Waterfall, in German and English.
Bosley Discovers the Waterfall (affiliate link) is a cute book, with atmospheric colour illustrations that fill the page. The backgrounds of the pages are beautiful, like paintings in a home. Bosley is drawn as more of a cartoonish character so that he and his friends stand out.
In this Bosley book, he goes in search of the waterfall he sees in the distance. Not heeding the warning of Bird, he gets right into the water and goes over the falls! After making sure that he’s physically okay, Bosley declares that he doesn’t like nature any longer as it’s dangerous. Bird helps him put things back into perspective, “When something scares us, sometimes it’s hard to see how wonderful it is.”
We all read the book together with this as our backdrop. It’s surprisingly like one of the scenes in this book, right down to a little bird (it was fast and didn’t settle close enough to photograph well). I’m not so familiar with German, but the children loved listening to me read and thought it was a fantastic story, and we’ve read it several times since.
This would be a good book for children who are insecure, or nervous about the world around them. They’ll learn that as long as they are careful and respectful of nature (or another situation), they should enjoy the world around them, and explore with a new adventure each day.
This is the second Bosley Bear dual-language book we’ve seen and it follows the same easy format as Bosley Builds A Tree House.
The right-hand side of each page is split in two with English in the left column and (in our case) German in the right column. The sentences are managable and the paragraphs short. The key vocabulary is in white (against a green page) so that it’s immediately recognisable. All of the new vocabulary words can also be found at the back of the book in one place.
This fun book is perfect for homeschoolers, children living in a foreign land, or for parents and schools to help children learn a second language in a fun way. It won’t teach you the language, but it will help reinforce your learning and make it ‘useful’!
If you enjoy books, flip over to our books and book activities page, or see our Multicultural Activities for Kids page where you’ll find all of our multicultural ideas in one place.
If you’d like to follow Tim as well, you can find him on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and also Pinterest. We can’t wait to see what adventures Bosley will find himself in in the future!
