A Big Guy Took My Ball!: Elephant & Piggie

This is a fun and silly book about two friends and how one friend must find the courage to get his friend's ball back. Students will find it funny.

A big guy takes Piggie’s ball. Of course Elephant feels confident he can get Piggie’s ball back from the fellow. Then he sees the big guy...and this big guy is really, really big.

Another perfect Mo Willems tale. Does Mo Willems ever swing and not get a hit?

This short story is a simple story that is easy for children to read themselves. The book is about sharing and not bullying others. I feel that this book is great for grades pre-k-fourth because it teaches a valuable lesson. The illustrations are cartoons that are drawn very well.

This a great story about friendship, and not judging a book by its cover. They assumed that the whale was mean because he was big and took their ball, when it turns out it was his ball to begin with and he was just lonely. I liked the simplicity of the illustrations. It had a simple text, but I was

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still able to tell the emotions of the characters through the pictures. I also like that they show diversity in having an elephant and pig as friends.

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Piggie complains to his rather large elephant friend that a big guy took my ball. Elephant goes to defend him and realizes the big guy is much bigger than he. After a little cowering they discover the big guy just needs a friend. This is a very cute book that is great for teaching kids that people

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aren't always as they seem.

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Mo Willems books are just wonderful for beginning readers. They are high interest and the illustrations keep the action of the story moving. The expression on the characters faces are priceless. In the story A Big Guy Took My Ball! Piggy looses his ball to a big guy (whale). Piggie asks Gerald for

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help to get his ball back since Gerald is a big guy too. However Gerald ends up not being big enough. The two find out that their big friend just wants someone to play with and the ball is actually his. The story ends with all three characters enjoying each others company. The vocabulary for this story includes many words that can be sounded out by early readers as well as appropriate site words. Beginning readers will be motivated to read this story because of it's fun characters, plot and illustrations and they will have success reading the story because of the thoughtful word choice.

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A Big Guy Took My Ball! is about Gerald and Piggie trying to get Piggie's ball back from a big guy who took it. Piggie first comes to Gerald upset about the fact that some big guy took his ball. This doesn't make Gerald very happy because he doesn't like it someone is mean to his best friend. So,

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Gerald decides he is going to go and get Piggie's ball back, which shouldn't be a problem because Gerald is a big guy...right?

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This is a beginners book about a small pig, an elephant, and a big whale playing with a ball. The book emphasizes a lot about size. What is big or BIG, what is little and small, what is bigger than what and what is smaller than what. At first the pig thinks the whale took his ball, but it ends up

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that it is the whales ball, and at the end all three animals play happily together.

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3.5 stars.
Not my favorite one, but still cute.

I liked this book for two reasons. First, the book’s use of illustrations is wonderful and done well so that younger readers can connect to what they are reading and seeing. While this is a book without numerous words the illustrations go above and beyond to show the feelings portrayed by the

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characters. Such as, when Piggie returns to Gerald and tells him about all the fun he was having with the ball he shows excitement and joy. But when he begins to explain how the big guy took his ball the drawings show him in tears and with a broken heart over his head to show that he is sad. This is most certainly a book for very young readers and the illustrations will help maintain the readers’ interests by keeping them entertained as they learn to read the story. Another illustrative technique that is used is word size. For example, if Piggie or Gerald are having a calm conversation the word size is rather small. But as excitement builds in their voices the word sizes also increase in size dramatically. For example, when Piggie exclaims that “HE TOOK MY BALL!” it covers nearly two pages. This gives the reader the idea that the little guy is yelling and it is executed very well.
Secondly, I thoroughly enjoyed the three characters in this story. While none of them speak much the reader can feel connected to Piggie at first when he is upset about losing his ball. Then as he tells his friend Gerald about losing his ball to a bigger guy the reader feels that Gerald is the hero as he proclaims he will go retrieve the ball. Finally, the big guy who at the beginning the reader is assuming is the villain turns out to be this kind hearted whale that the ball actually belonged too. These three characters all get along very well together and at the end when they are all happy together the reader can be happy for all three as they all got what they wanted, to have someone to play with.
The big message of this story is that friends can come in all shapes and sizes. If someone makes you uncomfortable because they are bigger/smaller then you should try to get to know them first before you start to judge them.

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This is one of my classes favorite book-look reads because it is silly, and totally applicable to their lives as preschool students. There are always going to be playground misunderstandings, and the best way to solve them is by talking it out. Talking it out is a lesson I want my students to

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learn, so I am all for having this book in my class. Moreover, Willems' has a talent for dialogue, and I love reading Gerald and Piggy's silly conversations!

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Another excellent Elephant and Piggie book, I am big fan of this series. This time we explore big vs Big. Piggie thinks a whale has stolen his ball an enlists the help of Gerald. As always with this authors books the story is clever with simple dialogue a learning reader can understand. The

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drawings are cartoon like and yet very expressive.

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A Big Guy Took My Ball is a fun and interactive book for young readers. I have personally used this with children and they enjoyed it.
It could be used in the classroom in multiple ways. One way it can be used is to assign groups of students to one character and they all read the lines together. It

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works well because the book is all dialogue.

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Mo Willems does it again! In this Elephant and Piggie story, Piggie's ball gets stolen by a big guy. Elephant becomes furious that someone would do this to his little friend. Elephant thinks he is big so he is determined to get the ball until he realizes this big guy is much bigger than he is!

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Finally they realize size doesn't have anything to do with it at all and make a new friend!

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A Big Guy Took My Ball! by Mo Willems is the nineteenth Elephant and Piggie book. Piggie has a ball she wants to use to play with Gerald, except now she can't. A "big guy" (bully) has taken it from her!

The draw for me and my children has been the humor and the emphasis on situational humor. If

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there's a prop, it's used in a nonsensical way until the internal logic of the story is finally revealed.

Here, though, the humor seems to be set aside for a very special episode. Piggie, gasp, has a run in with a, gasp, bully. And the only thing to do is get Gerald, who is bigger than she is, to fix things.

Oh there are so many squicky things with this. First of all, it puts Piggie into the damsel in distress role, something she has never-ever been in before and hopefully will never-ever be in again. Second, it makes Gerald, who is a complete pacifist, into someone potentially frightening.

Now of course, the bully doesn't end up being a bully, just a whale on the playground. But that in turn brings up the fat person as bully or villain stereotype. Why? Bullies come in all sizes and big kids are bullied for their size too.

Ugh. I want a re-do on this book.

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Big and small in perspective.

Award winning series
My 4 and 7-year-old daughters both love this series. I would definitely recommend these for every elementary library for the younger grades, Kindergarten-1st mainly.

The series is super popular with primary grade students at my school because the books are quite funny and play with tropes and cliches known to kids, such as the big guy bully cliche in this book. The characters' overly dramatic behavior is also highly humorous. A great series for early readers.

The series is super popular with primary grade students at my school because the books are quite funny and play with tropes and cliches known to kids, such as the big guy bully cliche in this book. The characters' overly dramatic behavior is also highly humorous. A great series for early readers.

A big guy takes a ball Piggie found. Biggie turns to his best friend Gerald for support. However, Gerald does not expect the big guy to be a whale!

A new Elephant and Piggie! (Newish, anyway. And new to me.) I was so excited when I saw this come through the book drop that I stopped right there to read it. It's definitely not the most amazing of the E&P books, but still wonderful.

Don't judge a whale by its cover! This is a good book to read to get kids talking about bullying, or perceived bullying. Just because a person is large, does not mean they are necessarily intimidating.

I got the impression there were a few more words in this E&P book than in most others I've read. And for some reason this didn't give me the Aww..." that was so big it made me tear up. I guess it's because the 'twist' was one that, had I thought about it, I would have seen coming.

Still, it's Mo

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Willems, it's wonderful, and I want an excuse to own the entire catalog of E&P books."

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Elephant and Piggie wonder what to do when a much larger kid has the ball they want to play with.