A Big Guy Took My Ball!-An Elephant and Piggie Book Hardcover – Illustrated, May 21, 2013

If you're unfamiliar with author/illustrator Mo Willems "Elephant & Piggie" series, please do yourself a favor and pick up a few. (I'll recommend my favorites at the end of the review.) His stories are often clever (a rarity in children's books), heartwarming, funny, and sweet. This book has each of those elements on display.Elephant Gerald is a pragmatic but passionate realist. Piggie is an effervescent joy. They're best friends. (Aw...)In this book, Piggie runs to Gerald stating a "big guy" has taken her ball. Gerald, also a "big guy" heroically seeks to retrieve said ball. He's in for more than one surprise.Mo Willems effortlessly tackles several childhood issues in this book without the audience ever once catching a whiff of parable or preaching. There's playground territory (who gets the ball?), big guys vs. little guys, insecurities, acceptance, and seeing beyond differences to get along. ("Adult authors" spend hundreds of pages without ever coming to as graceful a conclusion as Mr. Willems does in a 5-minute picture book.) His illustrations are simple line drawings that contain brilliant expressiveness that will be enjoyed by the adult readers at least as much as the children. (This is, again, par for the course for the series.)Elephant & Piggie books are perfect for joint reading with a young reader. The cartoon-style thought-bubble dialogue makes for easy back-and-forth scripting, adding an element of interactivity to each book. My little reader will often say, "You can be Gerald. I'll be Piggie." It's some of the most effortless fun we've had reading together.While this is not my favorite book in the Elephant & Piggie series, I still like it A LOT, worthy of a 5-star rating. It's not a "favorite" only because Mr. Willems has set the bar so high with some of his prior efforts. (See We Are in a Book! (An Elephant and Piggie Book), Should I Share My Ice Cream? (An Elephant and Piggie Book), and I Am Invited to a Party! (An Elephant and Piggie Book) for some really spectacular children's literature!) "A Big Guy Took My Ball!" is still head-and-shoulders above most of the competition.HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

We love these books! My son (2 years old) loves the Gerald and Piggy books. This is another great one!

As soon as we saw this available a few months ago, I knew we had to order it! We fell in love with Elephant and Piggie just over a year ago, and have since fattened our bookshelves quite a bit, with a special section reserved for Piggie & Gerald.Piggie is happily wandering along, being her cute Piggie self, and she finds a ball and starts to play with it. Then a "big guy" came along and took the ball from Piggie, who ran to Gerald. Gerald, in all his best friend valor, was infuriated with this big guy, who was making all the other "big guys" look bad! He decided to handle it himself, stand up for his friend, and get that ball back! If you want to know the rest, you'll need to order the book. ;)The writing style is so imaginative, yet simple enough that the books make for excellent early reading practice. My 4-year old picked up this book, obviously for the first time ever, and he read the whole thing aloud to us! Actually this book gave us the perfect opportunity to start talking about punctuation and tone, and I showed my son how the squiggly lines are question marks, and they help us to know when the sentence is actually a question. Also, the various sizes of text, as well as using bold and italicized font, help the reader learn how and where to emphasize the dialogue!Once again, we are so happy with Mr. Willems' writing! Everything about the story, text, illustrations, and (shhhh) learning lessons come together to create a great book! I'm so happy we ordered this one, and at such an affordable price too!

My children, ages 4 and 10, and I both adore Mo Willems! We have about 5-6 of the Elephant and Piggie books and recently added this one to our collection. It's a very cute story about our friend Piggy, who finds and plays with a ball until a "big guy" took it from her. She immediately tells her friend, Gerald, who is outraged and goes off to find the ball-thief. Gerald is shocked by the SIZE of the thief and avoids confronting him. Later, the BF guy comes up to them and expresses how nobody plays with him because he is so big. The two friends take pity on him and decide to play with him. Sweet story that teaches how fiiends come in many sizes. It does a great job demonstrating compassion, friendship, and tolerance in a very comical way. The illustrations are simple but beyond charming. This author/illustrator does a great job in capturing realistic emotions and scenarios experienced in childhood. My children can relate well, and often refer back to these stories when sharing about their day.

We love the Elephant and Piggie books. My kids are 4 and 8 and have both loved them for years and I’ve been a fan since before kids for their fabulous illustrations and portrayal of emotions. They are funny and cute. This one if one of our favorites.

I once had a big guy take my ball at school so I thought I’d really relate to this- good for anyone who’s even been through this

These are very easy and strike up confidence to read. They're fun to read and literally not just my daughter's but my favorite as well because I love how into them she gets. She literally tries to act out the parts. If you like piggy and elephant, you'll also like the pigeon books by the same author.

The Elephant and Piggie books are absolutely adorable books to get children started in reading. The author does an amazing job at balancing to make a book fun yet very easy to read for beginning readers. The first graders come to the library and all want this line of books. We can barely keep them on the shelf. I highly recommend this book to anyone with a child starting to read. Check out the other books also! We Are In A Book was our first book we read and we just love that one in particular!