Mack is the construction supervisor and his team is building a house. From the skidder who brings the logs to the cement truck that pours the foundation, from page to page kids get to see how a house is put together. Remember the cumulative poem, "The house that Jack built?" This is an updated version of the poem with modern tools (large heavy machinery and vehicles) and they actually build a house.

Little Kid Reaction: My kids LOVED the popups in this book. I'm not sure they had the presence to understand the poem, as it was a bit complicated and long. But my 3 BOYS loved the popups.

Big Kid Reaction: I loved the popups. I was very impressed by the way they worked and their inventive mechanisms. However, like most popups, it didn't take long for the kids to break them. Within 3 readings and they had broken 2, I fixed one and then it got broken again on the next reading. I thought the text was creative but difficult to read. The poem (following the original pattern) relies on rhythm and rhyming, but the rhyming scheme changed, and sometimes that pushed the paired rhymes on separate pages, which throws off the rhythm of the whole reading.

To read our full review, go to The Reading Tub®.