Friday, August 3, 2018

Lulu loves stories by Anna McQuinn illustrated by Rosalind Beardshaw

The simple, significant message will ring true with every librarian, teacher, caregiver and parent as the day concludes with Lola’s nightly bedtime story. Everyone should begin and end the day with a good book. Kirkus on Lulu loves Libraries



I picked up a few books this week with CDs.  Lulu loves Stories has a wonderful soundscape on the CD which really adds another dimension for the listener. It is also presented in 20 languages including French, Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese and even Swahili. This is not a new book (2009) but it is still available.  You might also look for other books about Lulu. I need to read Lulu Loves the Library!

In Lulu loves stories she visits the library and is lucky because her parents take her EVERY week and even better when they arrive home her daddy and mummy READ her all the stories she has selected. It is for these two reasons that I think this would be a perfect book to read to parents of pre-school children perhaps at the evening meeting before their children start school. The message that books will/should come home every week and that (and this is the very important part) the expectation is that someone will sit down and read this book or set of books to and with the child.

"When they came home, Lulu's daddy reads the first story. It's about a fabulous fairy princess. The next day, Lulu is a fairy princess. She has a magical dress and a sparkly crown. She's just fabulous."

The stories continue about journeys, friends, tigers and Old MacDonald's farm but the best story of all is right at the end. It is a story about a wild and wicked monster! It is this intertextual reference (in this case to to Where the Wild things are) that really appealed to me.  This is book about the joys of shared reading, the power of imaginative play and the CD also gives you the chance to listen to familiar words in so many different languages.

I recently talked about Just right for Two which also features warm (and slightly fuzzy) illustrations by Rosalind Beardshaw.



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