This week, I am reviewing children’s book The Day That A Ran Away, written by B.C.R. Fegan and illustrated by Lenny Wen.

Fegan and Wen, They Did It Again!

I really should have been a poet. Ha!

For book review #9 back in March, I reviewed the just-about-to-drop for the first time, super-cute children’s book Don’t Ever Look Behind Door 32 written by B.C.R. Fegan and illustrated by Lenny Wen, which focuses on the numbers 1-32 in a cheerfully-spooky-but-not-scary hotel setting. And now next month, the duo will be releasing yet another children’s book, this one featuring letters and the alphabet, titled The Day That A Ran Away. This newest Fegan-Wen tale is set in both a school classroom as well as the wilds of a little boy’s imagination. Or is it?? 🤔😎

Like it’s predecessor Door 32, The Day That A Ran Away is a picture book, written in verse, with an emphasis on early learning skills for an intended audience of preschool-aged to early primary-grade students. The most significant difference between the two books is that while Door 32 focused on numbers and counting, The Day That A Ran Away focuses on letters and the alphabet.

I’ll see your hand, math skills, and raise you some pre-literacy reading practice!

Similar to my Door 32 review, I decided to read The Day That A Ran Away with my youngest, pre-K-in-September-bound daughter S4 to get a true review from the most honest a critic you will ever find in your life: a young child!

And The Results Are In! S4 Says…

Ladies and gentlemen, we have another winning bedtime book!

First off, when I told S4 that evening that we were reading another book where I was going to “take her picture” and “videotape her” (yes I still say videotape) throughout the story once again, she was THRILLED. It was probably one of the only times S4 has ever demonstrated excitement for the arrival of her bedtime hour, ever.

In her life.

Really, truly.

Ever.

So right away, we kicked off this story experience on quite the positive note. And I, of course, was delighted that S4 had so much fun ‘helping me’ with my book review last time, that not only did she recall the experience, she was THRILLED to do it again!

Similar to last time when we read Door 32 together, S4 again sat through the entire book without issue, a substantial feat of sit-stillness at bedtime that she doth not often possess. Also, like last time, S4 interacted with the book when prompted as well.

But…

I did notice something new when we read The Day That A Ran Away, that I did not see last time when we read Don’t Ever Look Behind Door 32. It was different, yet it also made me smile.

Knowledge = Confidence!

I will admit that while S4 can count out loud to 32, she isn’t able to identify many numbers greater than ten just yet. Which is fine! I don’t believe in pushing children to be literal ‘Baby Einsteins.’ Therefore, when reading Don’t Ever Look Behind Door 32, there were some questions I asked that S4 was unable to answer. While reading Door 32, we ended up focusing a lot on the illustrations she liked best (there were many!) and as you can see in the clip below, S4 explained to me, in her own, three-year-old-at-the-time way, that she didn’t know all of the numbers, and that she likely needed more practice with those skills.

However, when it comes to letter recognition and the alphabet… S4 is a legit Masta (at least with capital letters.) Thus this time, she became darn enthusiastic about sharing her vast letter knowledge with me! Check out the (very) short pre-reading exercise we engaged in below, before delving into The Day That A Ran Away. I believe her initial hesitation was due to the numerous letters on the first page, as she possibly didn’t know which one I wanted her to identify.

Or… perhaps she simply didn’t feel like answering me. That’s a thing that happens sometimes, too. 😂

Lenny Wen’s Got The Magic Pen

Move over Emily Dickinson, there’s a new Poet sheriff in town, amirite?

😄

Once again, illustrator de excellence Lenny Wen does not disappoint with his artistic interpretation of this story. Wen’s gorgeous, vivid drawings complement author B.C.R. Fegan’s engaging prose to perfection, and as you can see in the video below, tricked the heck outta me! I didn’t even see the ‘B’ S4 pointed out, as I was looking at the bold white letter in the sentence. I was NOT attending to the, ahem, ‘whole picture!’

S4, however, was not so easily fooled.

And yes, I played it off like I saw the illustrated ‘B.’ Spoiler Alert: I did not. 😮

The Storyline

The Day That A Ran Away is about a boy named Master Jet, who was caught by his teacher with a blank piece of paper instead of his assigned homework. The homework Jet was supposed to have completed was to write the alphabet.

Now S4 does go to preschool, but her connection to homework can more be attributed to her going-into-7th-grade sister S12. This year, as a first-year-of-middle-school 6th grader, S12 had a lot more homework than any of us were used to her ever having before. Consequently, sometimes S12 had no time to play with S4 last year on weeknights due to her oversized assignment workload. In response, S4 would often grab some coloring or sticker papers, plant herself beside S12,  and “do her homework” along with big sis, to emulate her role model and idol. And since S12 is pretty much a star student, I can’t think of a better role model I’d rather my youngest have in this realm, anytime, anywhere, EVER.

However, Jet in The Day That A Ran Away is not exactly a star student like S12. But that’s not to say he isn’t smart! And being that this book is a fantasy, whose to say he’s not telling the truth?

Maybe he is! Is poor Jet but just the innocent victim, here? 😮

Instead of telling his teacher that he had forgotten to do his homework, or… didn’t do his homework, or… basically any of the default typical sad-sack excuses every teacher has heard a million times before, Master Jet crafts an outrageous tale that would impress this teacher much more than a page of beautifully printed letters ever could!

Or perhaps, Master Jet’s tale is true? If that’s the case, I am very impressed he’s still sane. I mean… just look at that E in the clip, below!

I loved that this book featured vocabulary words beginning with each page’s letter both on and around the letters themselves. Good stuff, Fegan and Wen, good stuff.

A Book That Gets Kids Talkin’

S4 is often tired to the EXTREME by her bedtime, and her default reaction to such a feeling is… to act silly AF. However, when reading this book, I noticed, in-between silly moments, she also made some really cute personal connections!

For example, the clip below shows her spontaneous conversation about the ‘F’ page with me. S4 attends to the illustrations, points out details, discusses colors, etc… (the gender thing is all her, I did not have anything to do with that- let the record show 🤐😊):

Or here, when she noticed that letter S resembles a snake:

And here, which was my FAVORITE connection of the night: 😍😍

Oh, how I LOVED this moment. Thank you, B.C.R. Fegan!

Rhythm, Rhyme, Repetition, and Reading… Take Two!

As I stated last time, rhythm, rhyme, and repetitive language are three Rs that frequently result in early emergent readers developing the phonological awareness skills needed to progress to the next stage of reading development. Which is exactly what we want them to do in and around the ages of the intended audience for the book The Day That A Ran Away (about age 3-age 6, would be my guess). I think what helps keep S4 interested in the book at an hour that is typically not her finest, attention-wise is truly the rhythm and rhyme of Fegan’s prose. The sing-songiness of a read-aloud such as this book seems to be both comforting and enjoyable to kids around S4’s age.

Like Door 32, The Day That A Ran Away is written in verse. Fegan presents each “excuse” for the absence of each letter from Jet’s page as couplets, tercets, or quatrains, with slight variations on the rhyming patterns he chooses. The letters of the alphabet also present themselves, uh, alphabetically, leading me to another positive attribute of this story…

Predictability Rules!

Another late-night-young-child-attention-grabbing feature of The Day That A Ran Away is the fact that, similar to Door 32, the story possesses some predictable aspects. While adults tend to bristle at literary predictability, young kids tend to be just the opposite- they LOVE it. Predictability aids in improving young children’s reading comprehension as they learn to use clues along with their background knowledge to mull over what will come next in a story.

Right now, at S4’s age, books are just setting the stage for this type of thinking, and presenting Jet’s “rogue” letters in order was definitely the right decision by Fegan from an educational standpoint. So while S4 perhaps didn’t understand the big question of “Is Jet telling the truth about his homework or is this all just a figment of his cray-cray imagination?” She sure as heck knew what letter came after the Y page! And that’s what she SHOULD be able to see!

By the point shown in the video below, S4 had figured out that the items I was pointing out to her on each page all started with the letter featured. She cracked my code! 😮😊

A Silly, Satisfying, Solution (For Almost Everybody)

So, what do you think happens at the end of the book, after Jet gets through his entire, 26-page explanation of where the letters on his paper had gone? How the heck did his teacher respond to THAT word salad, you ask? (And props to Teach for listening to that diatribe. Ida cut Jet off around G or H, personally!)

Well… I regret to inform you that I just can’t say. You’ll have to read this book!

However, I will leave you with S4’s reaction to the story conclusion:

Poor Master Jet. 😥

Final Thoughts

The Day That A Ran Away is yet another absolutely charming picture book written by the talented duo of author B.C.R. Fegan and illustrator Lenny Wen. Education-wise, this book contains:

• A unique journey through all 26 letters of the alphabet
• Letter recognition practice
• Letter-sound exercises (finding items on the page that begin with the page’s featured letter)
• An engaging, relatable, storyline containing some age-appropriate predictability
• Exposure to different styles of rhyming poetry (couplet, tercet, quatrain)
• The utilization of rhythm, rhyme, and repetitive language to assist early emergent readers
• Gorgeously vibrant illustrations to ensure continuous story engagement

And more! What else? Again, you’ll have to read this book!

This time, I will leave the last word of this review to not just S4, but S4 AND yours truly. Typically, I do NOT like being in front of the camera, but I guess I was having a ‘moment’ that night where I just didn’t mind.

A rare moment.

Very rare.

Thanks for reading. Until next time!

Disclosure: The book was provided to the reviewer. All thoughts belong to the reviewer and have not been influenced.