Three and a half stars. Fun fable in Peet's typical rollicking verse. I'm so glad my library hung onto these old stories. ( )

"Kermit the Hermit", a children's book by Bill Peet, is the charming story of Kermit, a miserly crab who stuffs his place of dwelling with all kinds of objects. One day while looking for stuff to hoard, Kermit is nearly buried alive by a dog, but is saved by the dog's owner, a little boy who sets Kermit free. Kermit wants to repay the boy for saving his life, but doesn't know how. The next day, he sees the little boy fishing on the pier, and takes his line under the water, helping him hook a big halibut. But the halibut swims madly away, pulling Kermit along with him into deeper water, where he finds the wreck of a pirate ship. A shark comes along, and Kermit escapes being eaten by hiding in an old chest, where he finds a huge stash of gold coins. Eventually, he gathers all the coins, and wants to find a way to take them to the little boy, but does not know how to find him. He is helped by a friendly pelican, who carries Kermit in his bill and lets him drop the coins down the family's chimney two at a time. The once-poor family never finds out where the money came from, but are able to live comfortably off of it.

This is a wonderful children's story that emphasizes the value of a good deed. ( )

Part B/picture

Kermit is a lonely, greedy crab that lives all by himself in a cave under the rocks off Monterey Bay. Because of the need to survival, Kermit becomes a hermit because he fights with all sea creatures, such as sea gulls, to survive. Thus, he has no friends. One day, Kermit’s greediness leads him into great trouble and almost causes him his life. If not for a little boy in a straw hat, Kermit would have lost his life. To repay the boy’s universal debt, Kermit goes through extreme danger, in the shark infest depths of the ocean to the magnificent height in the sky, to repay the boy who saves his life.

The illustrations are beautiful and the plot of the story is meaningful and can be applied to this life that we are living in. Peet is delivering a profound message for all readers through a crab named Kermit.

I thought this book was nice, but didn't really grab me. It has a nice moral to the story. the reader needs to be a strong reader. The vocabulary is a little more advanced in my assessment. ( )

When Hermit the Crab fills his cave with all his "treasures" he has located, he travels out on the sand to collect yet one more item when a dog buries him in the sand. A little boy sees this and saves the crab by putting him back in the ocean. The crab is overwhelmed by the thoughtfulness of the boy because he saved his life. The crab finds a treasure at the bottom of the ocean and after quite some work and planning delivers gold to the boys home as payment for saving his life.
I thought the book was cleverly written, and the poetry pulls you along into the story. Not being a huge poetry fan, this book kept my interest and made me want to turn the page. The illustrations were great!
As a classroom extension I would ask the children what they thought of the crab and his "hermit, selfish ways". The students could draw their version of a hidden treasure under the sea. I would have the students use this story as a starter for their own poem about an animal or friendship.