This book is excellent for letting children know ANYONE of ANY SIZE can begin to exercise and increase strength and wellness. I reviewed it on my blog and made a free printable for teachers to lead classroom "brain breaks" after reading this story to the children. It seems we read in the news, hear on the radio, and so on about the fact children need to play and exercise and eat right, but the adults are mostly hearing this information. Here is a book aimed at the target audience, children! ( )

I liked this book for two reasons. First, its message about the importance of exercise it a good way to teach children that they need be active to be healthy. The story follows Wallie, a large dog, realizing that he has become lazy and decides to start working out in order to be healthy again. Wallie begins to exercise and change his ways as the story progresses. Throughout each picture he begins to look happier and even makes better choices, such as drinking water. Wallie’s journey shows that anyone can start making healthy choices regardless of their size or their past habits. The cartoon dog is an attention capture for young children and makes the idea of exercising less intimidating because it isn’t an adult telling them they need to go out and play instead of sitting around but a cartoon. I also liked this book because it contained a section towards the end of exercises that Wallie performed so children can copy these exercises and be like Wallie. Children can follow along while reading the story or complete these exercises after reading. ( )

I am a homeschooling mom of three boys and while my boys are naturally very active, this book helped them to understand how some people can be just the opposite and need some motivation to exercise and be healthy. ( )

We just adored the book...the illustrations are just gorgeous, full of bright and engaging colours and easily attracted my children's attention. The animals depicted are cute, comical and very impressive, my little folks just fell in love with them and they had no problems doing the exercises.

Wallie is a very lazy dog and his belly is getting to big for his clothes, so his owner packs him up and searches for a place to help Wallie loose some weight. They meet Edwin the Exercise Elephant who takes Wallie under his wing and teaches him a few things. The prose is mostly done in rhyme, which is always successful in capturing a child's attention, as well as, having several sight words throughout the story. I have had to read this several times to my youngsters, and they have found it easy enough to read themselves, though they prefer me reading, I make up voices and they just love the voice I gave to Wallie!!

At the back of the book you will find cute exercises that you can incorporate with your children's daily regime, like Silly Shark Squats, Wallie Wiggle Wag Walks or Lazy Tag. With simple instructions on how to perform each, I soon had them all on the floor walking around on all fours and waggling their "tails". It was quite comical, they had a blast and they didn't even realize they were just exercising, until I explained it to them afterwards, and I'm fairly certain my 5 year old grand-daughter still doesn't believe me...LOL

This a very entertaining, visual and hands on book that I would suggest everyone grab a copy for their wee ones, day cares would benefit keeping such a book on hand also. The little ones would just love it and like I said, the exercises are simple and fun to do~!! Though the suggested age is 4, I think even younger ones would benefit from such, all kids like to pretend they are dogs!! ( )

This was a cute story about a dog who (almost) learns to exercise. If I read it correctly Wallie's exercise is wagging his tail. However I didn't get that the first time I read it. I would have loved to see one more page that shows Wallie wagging left, and wagging right etc. Other than that there were good points about staying hydrated, wearing appropriate exercise clothes. The beginning was a great lesson in what NOT to do. And Wallie's moments of rhyme were well done and enjoyable. This will definitely be going in my classroom library. ( )