Perusing the shelves of the library while holding my daughter’s arm [if I don't hang on, she zings away and the chase is on] I noticed a group of white hardcover picture books that seemed to stand out on the vast shelves. This one was titled BooBoo and featured a little duck-like creature on the cover. Interesting enough, I thought.
The author’s name was Olivier Dunrea… no conclusions to draw from that, but it had my 17-month-old daughter’s attention. That was good enough for me, so we sat down on one of the undersized library chairs and I opened the book.
It turns out that BooBoo is a gosling (a baby goose — not a typical children’s animal character.) Not only that, but she is a little blue gosling who likes to eat. In the story, BooBoo wanders from food bowl to food bowl eating whatever she can. Eventually she eats a little bubble that happens to be floating by. Burps ensue (as do good times with your little early reader.)
The story is beautifully simple, and the author has done a terrific job of paring the words down to only those that are essential. The art is also wonderfully rendered in ink and watercolor, and utilizes the same minimalism as the writing. There are always at least a couple fun things to point out on any page.
The best part about it is that it tells a great story using so little. Our child is getting to a point where the board books are still okay, but we want to read her more story-oriented books. This is just what we were looking for.
Naturally we also borrowed the rest of the books in the series from the library. Some of the other titles include Gossie, Ollie, Ollie the Stomper and Peedie. All of them are similar with little goslings and their peculiar habits, yet each is unique and fun in its own way (Gossie loves her little red boots, Ollie won’t come out of his egg, and so on.)
I enjoy reading them to our daughter mainly because she enjoys reading them. And she is obviously the critic that matters.
