Are You Ready to Play Outside?

A review by Bill Landau

Willems, Mo. Are You Ready To Play Outside? New York: Hyperion Books for Children, 2008.

Are You Ready To Play Outside? by Mo Willems is a Level One Easy Reader, but it sometimes pushes the boundaries of what is considered normal for Level One. The names of the two primary characters, Piggie and Gerald, are not sight words as they don’t fall into the child’s natural oral language. Both names have six letters, which is above the five-letter/one-syllable norm. But because the names are repeated so often throughout the book, they will quickly become sight words that the young reader will begin to recognize immediately.

For the most part, the Elephant and Piggie books are below the maximum restrictions of sentence length and words per line. Other than sound effects, the entirety of the text takes place within word bubbles so this also helps to restrict the length of the text. The typeface is very large and is often featured in all capital letters to indicate yelling or distress.

Willems rarely uses more than three lines per page on these books so this falls well below the acceptable range of 2 – 7 lines per page. In this particular book, the only page that has seven lines is double page spread that features a drawing of Piggie on one page with the text balloon taking up the entire facing page as she shouts, “HOW CAN ANYONE PLAY OUTSIDE WITH ALL THIS RAIN?” At nine words and seven lines, this is the longest sentence in the entire book. This page will provide a challenge for beginning readers because of the length and the words “anyone” and “outside”.

The book is very visual in the way the illustrations help to tell the story. Large amounts of white space add to the simplicity of the presentation. With fewer than 150 words making up the entire text of this book, Willems manages to tell a rather complex story. The happy duo wants to play outside, but it starts raining. Piggie is miserable but some worms help her decide that playing in the rain is fun. Once she sets her mind on having fun in the rain, it stops raining. That problem is resolved with a humorous, surprise ending. That is a lot of plot to convey in less than 150 words! Willems accomplishes this task by including plenty of picture clues in the illustrations. Several pages have no text at all, but the meaning is always clear because of strong, expressive drawings.

Many of Willems’ offerings are “performance books” which allow the storyteller to make use of dramatic pauses, loud exclamations and colorful expressions. Humor is a strong point of the Elephant and Piggie books and they often contain a surprise ending. This is a formula that has worked well for the author and one that will keep Level One beginning readers coming back for more.