Franklin Rides a Bike

Franklin Rides a Bike (CAN, JP, US, INT)

Written by: Paulette Bourgeois

Illustrated by: Brenda Clark

Published by: Kids Can Press
Ages: 4+



My son has been wanting to take his training wheels off for about 6 months. His original goal was to do it while grandad was visiting so grandad could teach him like he taught me. But we were busy riding our bikes all over creation and never had a free afternoon for teaching. Since then he keeps talking about is but everytime the time comes he'd get busy with soccer (aka the sport that is taking over our lives).

We mutually decided Golden Week was the time. Then last weekend when we got out the wrench it started to rain, and ash, and who wants to be outside in that? He looked so disappointed though, so we went to the computer and looked for a book about learning to ride a bike. He picked out his old friend Franklin and we downloaded it for Kindle and started reading it right away on the computer. No waiting or anything? I think he was a little dumbfounded by that, and a little afraid his favourite delivery driver (who often has pockets full of jelly beans) might not be delivering books to our house anymore! No chance of that. ;) We'll always order paper books as well.

Franklin Rides a Bike features the friendly Franklin in a new adventure. This time all his friends have already taken their training wheels off, and Franklin wants to join them. He is, however, still Franklin, and as envious he is of his friends, he is too apprehensive to work on it and wants to be able to do it automatically without practice.

This is probably the Franklin book I like the most just for the sentiment. I like the message that you need to put effort in to get results, and that people all have different experiences and we shouldn't be envious of them. Spinky thought it was sweet that Franklin could ride off with his friends. I'm also happy that Franklin and his friends were all wearing helmets, that doesn't really happen here and I'm glad Spinky noticed as now he knows he is not all alone. He did wonder why a turtle who has a shell also needed a helmet though!

Spinky hasn't quite mastered riding his bike without training wheels, but we had a fun afternoon of practice. Here's hoping it clicks for him soon!

This is the 40th book I have read for the 5th Canadian Book Challenge.