Top critical review
3.0 out of 5 starsA silly story for kids :)
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 2, 2013
I got a copy of this from Vine.
"Barnyard Fun" (I kinda like to think of the title as actually being "Barnyard Fun, April 1" going by the cover, theme, and the rhyming scheme of the book) is a pretty breezy read. Of course, it is for children.
Of course, the book is about mischievous Sheep waking up on that day of pranks, and most of the book consists of various practical jokes on his fellow farm animals. They are pretty silly, like snakes-in-cans, and frosting a cardboard box with chocolate cake, so if you know a kid who'd do this, you better watch out, adults!
Anyway, the book is just following a simple AABB rhyme more or less but has no major words in it, so if you're not an adult trying to teach your kids words like "splendiferous" this book is just a-okay. At the end, Horse, the only animal our protagonist didn't mess with, decides to play a prank on Sheep.
"Barnyard Fun" is a very fast read, just a minute and a half or so, but if you're not a speed reader you're looking at around 5 minutes of reading to a kid, so it's definitely shorter than, say, Berenstein Bears or something like that. It's got lots of chuckle moments so if you want your kid to giggle at silliness, this is a book for you, plus Sheep seems to have learned a lesson at the end!
I'd recommend this mostly to parents who enjoy reading goofy/silly stories to younger children, but this is not for any kid much older than 6. When I was six, I was reading Little Golden Books which are longer than this, so I'd probably say the proper age for this book is around 4-5.
