Please, Mr. Panda (Board Book)

Product Information

Before you start reading the story, talk about what you can see in the cover illustration. What do children think Mr Panda is holding? Read the story aloud to your child, pausing if children would like to talk about the pictures. Join in Make a list of the animals in the story. Can you find out where they live in the wild? Can you plot their locations on a map? Look, saying "please" and "thank you" are polite, and if the animals had encountered Mr. Panda and his box of doughnuts and said, "Give me one right now!", he might've been justified in refusing. But the fact that he offered, and then reneged on the offer when the response didn't meet his own unknowable threshold for politeness, just makes him look rude. (If this were a book for adults, I would suspect that might be the point. You know, an ironic statement about the people who demand etiquette but don't show much themselves. Sadly, I think this book is just a poorly conceived, preachy children's book.) Use animation software to make an animated version of the story. Look at these examples for inspiration:

Please Mr Panda by Steve Antony is a lovely little story which also helps toddlers and preschool children learn the importance of manners. The illustrations are lovely too. I have two girls who are two and five. My eldest understands and generally has good manners but the youngest is still learning. This book has been great for helping her. The book doesn't actually explain why only the animal that says please gets doughnuts but my 5 year old realised this and each time we read it we explain to our toddler why the rude animals don't get any doughnuts. I think it's starting to help her understand. We've read it a few times now and if you ask her after reading each animal’s reply if they are going to get any doughnuts, she knows if they will or won’t. A sleepy-eyed panda bearing a tray of doughnuts offers them to a variety of animals. However, their eager replies elicit a negative response from Mr Panda. Why should this be? A lively lemur comes up with the right reply. A reminder about good manners is presented with more than a touch of wry humour, especially at the dénouement. The lemur already knows what to say. He doesn’t have to be prompted. This is when I wish I had a child here to see what they thought of this book. But I don’t. I love that Mr. Panda is giving away the doughnuts because he does not like doughnuts. That was fun. You remember that pandas only eat bamboo. But is it fair for Mr. Panda to withdraw the doughnuts when “please” and “thank you” are not said? A grumpy Mr. Panda offers a series of animals his delicious-looking doughnuts in this picture-book from British author/artist Steve Antony, only to change his mind, when creature after creature doesn't respond as politely as he would like. Finally, an enthusiastic lemur says the magic word, and our ursine hero rewards him with the entire box. Apparently Mr. Panda doesn't like doughnuts...

Customer reviews

I never imagined in a million years that Mr. Panda would star in his very own series of books! I wrote Please, Mr. Pandaa year after being made redundant from a call centre. In fact, if I hadn’t been made redundant the Please, Mr. Pandaprobably wouldn’t exist. The book wasn’t even called Please, Mr. Pandato begin with. It was called Would You Like a Doughnut? Use different coloured playdough to make a tray of doughnuts, talk about the actions you are doing to shape the dough and the different colours while you are making them together. Act out the story

I’ve actually just finished the 5th Mr. Pandapicture book. I don’t think I’ll ever get bored of Mr. Panda because he’s such a funny character to develop. He’s grumpy-looking yet really generous. He’s big and gruff yet wears pink frilly aprons. He isn’t perfect, yet he tries his best to teach manners in his own unique (and somewhat unorthodox) way. Plus, he has the best fans. After hearing the story a few times, children will get to know it well. Encourage them tell it to you in their own words, with some words or phrases from the story, using the pictures to help them. Total win. We must have reenacted this book for a solid half hour. Of course, I was never Panda, always the hapless animal who was crying because she couldn't have any doughnuts.Conduct a survey to find out the favourite doughnut flavours of your friends. Use this information to create a tally chart or a bar graph.