Friday, 14 February 2014

Squirrel's Busy Day by Lucy Barnard (Children's, Picture Book, 10E/10E)

July 2013, QED, 24 pages, Paperback, Review copy

Themes: animals prepare for winter, autumn, being self-absorbed, friendship
 
Summary from Amazon (QED website makes my laptop crash, I don't gain anything by mentioning Amazon) 
Squirrel is very busy, too busy to play with his friends. He is collecting acorns in his trolley to store up for winter! When an unfortunate accident happens, Squirrel is left with a big job on his hands. He soon finds out friends are not just for playing with though...

Nayuleska's thoughts
I feel that Squirrel's tale demonstrates true friendship. Even though Squirrel ignores his friends and doesn't stop for even a few minutes to say hi they still band together when he needs their help. What Squirrel does is impolite - he should have said 'ok, I can spend a little time with you'  to each friend then carry on acorn collecting. They forgave him for being selfish because that's what friends do.

I loved the cute round style of the illustrations - even the slugs looked friendly! I wanted to pick each creature up (the furry or feathery ones, NOT the slug) and hug them as they are so adorable. They all look happy as well as ready and willing to lend Squirrel a paw. I liked how some pages had the illustrations in bubbles, that made a change from using the entire page. The questions at the back which I'm coming to expect from QED provided some interesting talking points.

Suggested read
Another book about friendship is Nat The Cat's Sunny Smile by Jez Alborough (Children's, Picture book, 10/10E)

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