August, 2008:

The Travel Adventures of Lilly P. Badilly is a book written and illustrated by Debbie Glade. The CD is a narration of the story, read by the author, and full of music written by the author’s daughter and husband. The story follows a family of millipedes who live in the Miami International Airport and embark on a journey to Costa Rica, stowing away in a traveler’s briefcase. They get into all sorts of trouble and have to figure out how to save themselves from a scary spider and get back home. The CD includes authentic Costa Rican rainforest sound effects, lots of catchy music, and the goofiest cartoon voices you’ve ever heard.

A few weeks ago, my kids and I checked out this book and CD, and I’m going to include their commentary here in my review. Basically, we all thought this book was hysterical. The author’s cartoon voices are the best part. As soon as I heard Lilly “speak” I started giggling. I giggled even more when I heard the voice of Grandpa Willy Badilly. It’s actually become a big joke around our house – Kayley and I love to talk to and tease each other in the voices of Lilly and Grandpa. And my kids loved hearing Grandpa Willy, who has chronic gas, farting throughout the story. What can I say, we love potty humor in this house.

It’s a fun story with a great message – the themes it touches on include being happy with yourself and celebrating your uniqueness, facing your fears, helping others in need, and even being compassionate with those folks who are less kind than they ought to be. All great things for kids to hear about! And the CD is 35 minutes long – it’s great to pop in for a car trip across town.

Here are some of my kids’ thoughts on this book:

Grandpa Willy farts just like daddy farts! – Nikki, age 3.

Who is that man singing in the first song? Just some guy who decided to sing a song with Lilly? He isn’t in the story anywhere else! – Mallory, age 5.

They ate a brown banana! I don’t yike brown bananas! Only yellow bananas. – Lexi, age 3.

It’s a really fun book for the whole family. I don’t think this book is available in stores yet, but you can purchase it directly from the author’s website, at LillyBadilly.com. Do it!

Also, if you’re a Florida resident, you can have Lilly Badilly’s author, Debbie Glade, visit your school or library to speak about geography, culture, plants and animals, problem-solving, reading, writing, and all the other things she writes about in her book. I would be all over this, if I lived out there! I had a nice little conversation with the author, and found out that her husband is a twin, and that he and his twin sister were #6 and #7 for his folks. Can you imagine? I love that this book was a labor of love by the whole family.

This review made possible by The Mommy Reviewers.