finnegan and fox: the ten-foot cop :: review

I love finding great kids books and our shelves desperately need some new material.  While on my search to expand our literary horizons I was ecstatic to rediscover a great publishing company based here in Michigan, Sleeping Bear Press.

While Sleeping Bear Press has a nice long list of books to select from we were lucky enough to get a chance to look at one of their new releases, Finnegan and Fox: The Ten-Foot Cop by Helen L. Wilbur.  Finnegan and Fox: The Ten-Foot Cop was an instant hit with my girls and after our first reading I had immediate requests for an encore performance (so you know it really was liked)!

The book is all about Finnegan (a horse) and Fox (his police officer partner) who work in Times Square.  During the course of the story Finnegan helps rescue a lost little girl.  Everything turns out okay in the end, but the thematic elements definitely helped hold the attention of my eldest through to the end of the story.

It’s interesting to see New York City from the perspective of a horse and this different view of things really resonated with my 5-year-old. Before our first read-through I had her browse the illustrations (which, thanks to Illustrator John Manders, are fun to look at all on their own).

The book was informative and entertaining, I learned along with my kids about how the mounted police horses are specially trained, selected, and cared for. There’s also some additional facts and tidbits included at the end of the book regarding mounted police.

Finnegan and Fox: The Ten-Foot Cop is geared for Ages 6-9 and a reading level of Grade 4.  My 5-year-old was captivated by the book the whole way through, but her 3-year-old sister lost interest about halfway through (which was surprisingly long for a 3-year-old so I knew she liked the book as well).

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*The product in this review was provided to me for the purpose of conducting this review. All opinions expressed are my own*