Sports Day In The Jungle (Bilingual Children's Book)

The first thing I noticed about Sports Day in the Jungle was the vivid and expressive illustrations. It turns out that Jill Newton, who both wrote and illustrated this book, also illustrated Keeping up with Cheetah. Both these titles have lovely, vibrant, and fanciful illustrations.

The second thing I noticed about this book was the abundance of wonderful vocabulary in the text. For example, the “tigers tumble, the toucans tango, the elephants humph and the frogs hop, skip and jump!” This is a real asset for me, because when I read a bilingual book to my children, I want them exposed to new and interesting words and phrases - and this book has plenty.

The storyline follows poor sloth, who cannot participate in the “Jungle Games” because he is so slow. He watches the other animals practice and endures a bit of teasing from Monkey, who always wins. But in the end, when Monkey overreaches and takes a spill, Sloth saves Monkey and becomes the hero of the day.

One noteworthy feature of this book is the final page, which lists interesting “Jungle Facts” about various jungle animals (“a tiger’s roar can be heard more than a mile away”). Note that this page is only in English.