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.
- Will my child memorise What Do You Do With a Tail Like This??
- Probably, and fast. The book leans on a repeated refrain, and at 5 out of 5 for re-read tolerance it survives the nightly repeats that get a book memorised. Expect your child to chant the pattern back before they can actually read.
- Can a beginning reader read What Do You Do With a Tail Like This? on their own?
- Not yet. At vocabulary level 3 out of 5 and 1 sentence a page, it is a read-aloud book rather than a first solo read. Read it to them now, and hand it over in a year or two.
- What themes does What Do You Do With a Tail Like This? cover?
- We tag it with animals, body parts, guessing, nature and first facts. Those are the threads that actually run through the book, not just the ones on the cover, which is how it earns its place on our themed lists rather than a keyword match.