Picture Book Review – Once Upon a Twice by Denise Doyen (5/5 stars)

I am always on the lookout for great kids book for my three year old.  He is into books on volcanoes, storms, Lightening McQueen, and Transformers…which is fine but I am always trying to find great books that will introduce him to magical stories, poetry, and the art of writing.  This was an amazingly fun book, that is written in a beautifully lyrical style, it is a great adventure, and uses fun non-sense words that make reading it similar in tone to reading the Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll.

Jam is a mouse that wants to go against what his elders teach him.  So he sneaks away from the other mice for a nighttime adventure.  When the adventure almost ends in disaster he learns an important lesson.

The artwork throughout this book is amazing.  The book takes place at night, so the book is mostly dark.  The paintings are beautiful and fun.

The story and writing are simple, but done in a fairy tale poetic type of style.  The phrases are all rhyming and Doyen makes up a number of nonsense words.  Surprisingly the nonsense words make absolute sense in the story and they add a lot to the rhythm of the reading.  This is a great book to read out loud.

I highly recommend this book for kids; adults would even enjoy a read through or two.  It is one of my family’s favorite picture books.  It is fun, full of adventure, poetic, lyrical, and rhythmic…just a super fun book to read out-loud.  Kids will enjoy the non-sense words, that somehow make perfect sense in context.  Everyone will enjoy the fun sound the story has to it and the beautiful pictures.  This is really an exceptional children’s picture book.