Harry And The Hot Lava

It’s hot!  Very hot!  What’s that?  HOT LAVA!!!  Harry And The Hot Lava is the newest children’s book by Chris Robertson.  It was just released on July 15th and is burning up the minds of young readers across the globe.

We received a review e-copy of this book in exchange for our honest review.

Harry and the Hot Lava is a fun and imaginative book.  It follows Harry (inspired by Chris Robertson’s son, Benton) and his adventures throughout the house playing a game of ‘hot lava’.  Have you ever played hot lava?  It’s the game where you can’t step on a crack, or certain parts of the floors, etc.  I remember playing a similar game in my parent’s kitchen.  They had blue and yellow floor tiles and I pretended the yellow tiles were land and the blue tiles were the oceans.  I couldn’t touch the blue tiles or I’d be eaten by Jaws!

Harry imagines there’s hot lava everywhere; “between the toilet and the tub…between the book case and the bed”.  Hot Lava is EVERYWHERE!

You can’t escape!  That is…until Mom comes to the rescue!  My children’s favourite part of the book is when Chris Robertson creatively wrote himself into the book and sails his son down the lava flow.

In fact, they enjoyed it so much they tried to recreate this scene, mixed with another of Harry on his bed.

Chris conveys lots of emotion and urgency through his illustrated words along the way.  That’s right, Christ Robertson is not just the author of Harry and the Hot Lava, but also the illustrator!  If you enjoyed Chris’ style in My Yellow Umbrella, you’ll enjoy this book as well.

This simple and fun story is perfect for when the children want a book but you don’t have a lot of time or energy.  It’s an easy reader so that Tristan is able to read it on his own or to his little sister, who is learning the words as well.  And if you have more time, let your kids’ imaginations run wild with their own hot lava games!

Harry and the Hot Lava can also be a very educational book!  You can use it as a base to explain some of nature’s wonders to children, and how to prepare for emergencies.

Carolyn Wilhelm of Wise Owl Factory has created some fun and educational printables to go along with Harry and the Hot Lava.  Tristan did very well learning about verbs and adjectives found in Harry and the Hot Lava, and both children enjoyed colouring a picture and asking all sorts of questions about volcanoes while they were doing it.  You can see Carolyn’s resource here.  She even has an excellent volcano experiment to try at home.

If you like volcanoes, try making your own volcano at home or try a chocolate lava cake in a mug (dairy and egg free).  If you don’t want to miss these posts, sign up for our free email delivery service, our posts straight to your inbox!  And see our page of books and book activities.

Don’t delay, get your copy of  Harry and the Hot Lava today!