This is a gloriously colourful book about the dangers of vanity and the value of friendship. Or it’s about a lion, a crocodile and a bunch of meerkats, whichever you prefer. The illustrations are marvellous – I particularly enjoy the one where the meerkats have braided bright feathers into the lion’s mane. This is not one to read from an over critical point of view, the continuity isn’t that strong (a lion who doesn’t know what a crocodile looks like and forgets that he can roar?) but if you can set that aside, it’s worth it for the colours.
Friendship
Bob and the Moon Tree Mystery Simon Bartram
Bob and the Moon Tree Mystery
is one of a series of books about Bob and his friend Barry. Bob works on the moon, keeping it tidy, helping visitors, that sort of thing. He looks very 1960s American astronaut to me, if that makes any sense. His dog has one eye and doesn’t appear to need a spacesuit. (This is relevant, bear with me.)
A tree grows on the moon, and then grows a particular kind of fruit. Bob looks after the tree which is a very odd tree. Then eventually it breaks away from the moon, and all the fruit pops off into space. One lands in Bob’s pond back on earth – and hatches into an alien. Which is odd, as every one knows there aren’t any aliens.
Apart from the dog it seems.
This is beautifully illustrated, but mainly goes over the head of my 4 year old – perhaps a good one for slightly older children? I think we have some more of these about somewhere, I’ll have to dig them out.
The Polar Bear and the Snow Cloud
How can a lonely little polar bear find a friend to play with? It’s not going to be easy, but he won’t give up hope.
This is a lovely little story about friendship. The polar bear only has one friend, a snow cloud, who can’t really play with him, but does his best by snowing carefully into shapes such as an owl, a whale and a seal cub. None of these play with the polar bear though, and they all melt.
The little polar bear is a bit sad, but then he finds another polar bear. Expecting it to be another snow animal he is surprised when it sneezes!
I love the snow owl in particular, and the idea of a snow cloud carefully dropping snowflakes to create friends. The illustrations are full of energy and the story is ideal for a winter’s day read.
It’s got: snow.
It’s not: a summer story.