What Do You Do With a Tail Like This?
What Do You Do With a Tail Like This? by Steve Jenkins takes about 4.5 minutes to read aloud (471 words, about 1 sentence a page), and it lands best with children aged 3-8.
Measured read-aloud timeabout 4.5 minutes
- Words
- 471
- Sentences a page
- 1
- Re-read tolerance
- 5/5still fine on the fortieth reading
- Vocabulary
- 3/5a few new words
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The useful verdict
Why What Do You Do With a Tail Like This? works
Five noses on a spread with the question 'what do you do with a nose like this?', then the page turn gives you five answers - so the book is built as a quiz a four-year-old can actually win. Ears, tails, eyes, feet and mouths each get the same two-spread treatment, and children insist on guessing every one.
Themes: animals, body parts, guessing, nature, first facts.
Same shape, new story
Books like What Do You Do With a Tail Like This?
Matched by length, refrain, sentence density, and listener—not just subject.
Straight answers
Questions parents ask about What Do You Do With a Tail Like This?
- How long does it take to read What Do You Do With a Tail Like This? aloud?
- About 4.5 minutes at an unhurried pace, from a word count of 471. Reading it fast shaves perhaps a third off; stopping for questions on every page can double it.
- What age is What Do You Do With a Tail Like This? actually for?
- Ages 3-8 in our testing, which is narrower than the publisher's range. With 1 sentence a page and vocabulary at 3 out of 5, it asks for that much attention span and no more.
- Does What Do You Do With a Tail Like This? survive being read on repeat?
- Yes - this is one of the few that is still fine on the fortieth reading, which is why it scores 5 out of 5 with us.
- Is What Do You Do With a Tail Like This? a good book for a child who will not sit still?
- It helps that it has a refrain a child can join in with, and it asks the child questions to answer out loud. Those three features are what keep a wriggling toddler listening, far more than the subject matter does.