Recently the Outdoor Blogger Network had a bunch of free giveaways to celebrate their one year anniversary. I was lucky enough to win a set of Olive The Wooly Bugger books. In my travels I had heard about these books before but I had never held one in my hands. I have a daughter who is around three so I thought these books would be great to read at bed time. The books came in the mail yesterday and what first surprised me was the quality.
Not only in the artwork but of the books themselves. The books are paperback but the pages are thicker than an average paperback. This makes the book more durable after several reads. The author Kirk Werner was kind enough to autograph all of the books as well as some bookmarks and a decal that was included.
As if the books, bookmarks and sticker weren't enough the give away also included a limited designed Olive The Wooly Bugger fly box. I'm hoping to get that soon. My daughter saw the books and was pretty ecstatic. She wanted me to read them instantly. I sat down with her to go over the first one Olive The Little Wooly Bugger.
The reading level was a little beyond my daughter. I kind of like that I have some books she can grow into. The full page illustrations were enough to keep her entertained. It was fun going over the different flies with her. The illustrations in this book are amazing and the characters of the flies are very clever.
In this book Olive is going to Camp Tight Loops. Unfortunately even in Olive's world there is dry fly snobbery and the dry flies give Olive a hard time.
The focus of the camp is to teach each fly its talent to help them catch fish. The best flies make it to the coveted Fly Box. Those flies get their chance at catching trout on The Big Stream. I really liked how this book tied in fly fishing knowledge with the plot. I'm actually going to recommend this book to many of my beginner fly fishing friends. The book also has a page at the end that has actual photos of fishing flies.
I thought this was a great addition so readers can reference flies they may have or want in the future. When I first got these books I didn't know what to think. After reading the first one and checking them out more I am overly impressed. These would be great gifts for anyone at any age who has the least bit of interest in fly fishing. I have to give a special thanks to OBN for hooking me up with these.
