Penny and Her Doll (I Can Read Level 1)

My girl's really liked these books...

Baby loved her book

There are not many books with the name “Penny “. This was a special gift for her 3rd birthday 🥳.

My little girl and I loved reading this book together. It's darling.

My four year old grand daughter read a bit of this book, but did not seem to enjoy it much. I purchased two and both were not much to her liking.One thing I have noticed in the later books that have been written even when getting awards. They are usually very short with little real substance to hold the attention of such a little one. These two were not an exception. Reminded me of my years of "Flip went over the fence to get the ball." "Flip fetched the ball...." Not much to chew on and these books held to that old adage of bordering on boring.Surely, we can do better by our children in this age of information we have at our fingertips. I did purchase a book on trees by another author that is just great, but for an older child. It, I know is an entirely different type of book, but it held her interest more than the Penny books. She did like looking at it though and likely learned much more from listening to her siblings read it. The name of the book is The Tree Book for Kids and Their Grownups by Gina Ingoglia.

Cute mouse book from a homeschool read list. Glad we got it and the other penny books too. Cute short easy reads for read aloud and when the time comes for our little to learn reading in.

This is my favorite child book author forever. I actually think I have every book he has written. Waiting for penny and her sled to go to paperback do it fits the series. He is great!! His characters are wonderful.

My daycare kids LOVE all the Penny books!

Brilliant book. My daughter cannot stop reading it over and over again. Another great job by Kevin Henkes. We are proper fans now :) Go get it.

The overt gendering and heteronormative values are very unusual for this author’s style (I have several other stories from him, including Penny stories), so I was very surprised reading this book. I honestly don’t think it was intentional by the author, but being aware of how your words all come together is part of the job for the author. So I am disappointed. This story was also written in 2012, so maybe expectations for children’s stories were different back then.Some of the things that I found concerning were the main character is wearing feminine colours and receives a doll as a gift, who is all in pink with a pink bow and pink cheeks. There was lots of focus in the storyline regarding the pink and the doll. The girl eventually names her Rose. It just felt like a lot of pushing pink pink pink for girls and dolls to play with. The entire storyline is basically what should Penny name her doll. At the very end, in response to Penny finally thinking of a name for her doll, the mother says “Now you can stop thinking so hard.”A few of these things alone, no big deal, but all together it just paints a very heteronormative picture about girls playing with dolls and not thinking “too hard”, and that was a turnoff for me and might be for others.

My girls love Penny’s stories and this one is cute.

I love this book. It has great crystal clear illustrations and also a great story. i'd say that this is a good book for young readers.

Such a sweet story for a little girl. We love Mr. Henkes' pictures and the little side notes that he adds to his books. He really understands how children think and talk, and it comes through in his mouse stories.