Tuesday Book Review: “Big Albert the Camel”

Book reviews are a great way for self-publishing authors to gain exposure. After all, how can someone buy your book if he or she doesn’t know it exists? Paired with other elements of your book promotion strategy, requesting reviews is a great way to get people talking about what you’ve written.

When we read good reviews, we definitely like to share them. It gives the author a few (permanent) moments of fame and allows us to let the community know about a great book. Here’s this week’s book review:

Big Albert the Camel

by Dr. Peggy Turnage

Publisher: Outskirts Press

ISBN: 9781478729792

Synopsis*:

This is a children’s book about Albert the Camel and his owner Mr. Geoff. Albert and Mr. Geoff try to find work, but Albert always has problems. This book is published by Outskirts Press. The author taught school for 28 years and had strange pets.

 * courtesy of Amazon.com

Featured Review:

This sweet picture book has been overlooked by many and shouldn’t be; the author, Dr. Peggy Turnage, passed away in 2015 and was unable to promote her work to the degree that many others are able. This said, the book itself features gorgeous illustrations by Sally Taylor, full of life and color, vim and vigor, and earnest sweetness. The story follows, as is perhaps expected from the title, Big Albert the (somewhat grumpy old) camel as he journeys through life and learns just what it means to live in this world … and with others!

One of the most attractive elements of this book to us, personally, has been the balance of text to page. Many children’s picture books cram the page so full of text that younger children (under the age of 3, specifically) really struggle to pay attention. Turnage and Taylor manage the text gracefully, here, with just the right combination of image and text–and that text is big and bold and easy to read, perfect for demonstrating finger-reading (when you begin to indicate to children how to read a page by following the words with your finger, which is usually paired with first teaching children their letters and numbers). Really, we couldn’t have invented a more perfect book to cozy up with this winter.