Noble, Sara. Sloth, Sam Sloth: The Unlikely Detective. Independently published, 2021. 32pp. $8.99. Purchase here.

Biographical Sketch of the Author

Sara Noble (From Amazon)  I love writing, painting with acrylics, drawing, teaching, hiking, running, cats, books, laughing, puns, and embracing the good, noble, lovely, and praiseworthy things of this life. I do have a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, but I took my time getting there between life, work and rabbit trails. I explored Astronomy, Psychology and Law along the way. My biggest passion is teaching, which for me, led me down the path of homeschooling our small children. I am always making stories, and I thought I might share some stories with you along the way.

(apparently, she opposes Oxford commas which we love here at Things Above Us, but oh well)

Summary

Sloth, Sam Sloth: The Unlikely Detective is a kid’s book about a sloth who finds himself in an unexpected predicament: his friend Kiki is missing and he has to find her. Children follow Sam on this adventure to find Kiki and are encouraged to interact with Sam.

Review

I cannot believe how much my little boys like this book. My wife and I are acquainted with the author (her testimony of salvation along with her husband’s are nothing short of amazing), and so to help her out I decided to ask her if I could have a free review copy of the book for the blog. She obliged and sent me a PDF. What happened next was that my 5 and 7-year-old boys both loved this book so much I bought a hard copy for our house and 3 more for my niece and a couple of my friends’ kids.

The physical copy of the book was soft-cover which should last longer with little ones dragging it around with them places. The pages are a nice size and the words are all large print enough even for people with failing eyesight like a grandparent who wants to read to the littles.

The book really seems very simple to me, but something about the sounds and the way it engages the young mind really captured my kids’ attention and enjoyment in a way that I do not notice occurring with other books. I noticed the Amazon reviews for the book have similar sentiments. Noble somehow captures something here that I can’t put my finger on, and it works.

Along that same vein, the illustrations seem simple enough to me, but my kids were simply enamored by them. I’ll admit I’ve never been the artistic type, and there’s something I don’t understand about aesthetics, but Noble must grasp these things I don’t, and she does it really well!

Finally, (and this is something I did notice and could understand), Noble encourages the kids to interact with the book. For example, Sam Sloth falls asleep, and when you get to a page where he’s sleeping kids know to tell him to “Wake up!” It’s really cute to watch and keeps their interest perfectly.

Recommended

I whole-heartedly recommend this book for your home. I also think it would make a great gift for friends.

At $9, this book is worth buying for your home or someone in your family or church. Purchase here.

I was provided a free electronic copy of this book for review. But I purchased it myself and give this review without any coercion!