Hug!
Rowan’s current favourite book is Hug! by Jez Alborough.
Hug! tells the story of a little gorilla called Bobo, who notices other animals in his jungle having hugs. He starts to feel sad because he realises he doesn’t have anyone to hug.
The story uses minimal words – on most pages, there is just one word, ‘hug’, used by different speakers and with different types of emotion. Rowan really responds to this concept and also to the illustrations. He really empathises with little Bobo, and mirrors all the emotions of Bobo on his own face. No matter how many times we read it, he always has a huge smile on his face when Bobo and Mummy are reunited!
Excellent review!
Whist the book utilises but a single word ‘Hug’ it explores a plethora of human emotions as identified by Weheartbooks. Through illustration and cleaver sequencing of events we are taken on a roller coaster rider from exploration of an unknown animal world, the ‘jungle’, to meeting its occupants, including a very kind adult elephant. The illustrations depict a very primal sense of affection, several Mother/Father with child interspersed with adult to adult. Loneliness develops during Bobo’s journey through the wilderness bringing him to the brink of despair without contact from his loved ones until the climax of relief when Bobo’s kin appears. From here the jungle world rejoices in love but Bobo does not forget the kindness that was afforded him by the adult elephant, a very relevant and unveiled learning experience.
20 Mar 2008 at 10.38 pm
Hi,
I haven’t read this one but I’ll certainly hunt it down! Right now we (my 2 1/2 year old twins and I) are reading “Duck in the Truck” where his famous duck’s truck gets stuck in the muck… My boys love it because:
- it’s about a truck and anything with wheels is fascinating at that age
- the pictures are large so they can see all the details easily and follow the story
- the story rhymes and I love the musicality of the text. I’m sure they love it too.
- it ends well with a little bit of irony.
Another favorite book is “I don’t want to go to bed!” by Julie Sykes and Tim Warnes (extremely useful at the moment!) Little Tiger doesn’t want to go to bed and his Mummy is tired of putting up a fight about it. So she lets him go in the jungle at bedtime. He visits all his friends (Little Elephant, Little Monkey…) but all of them are ready to go to bed and don’t want to go out and play. Eventually he gets lost and a nice animal takes him home… This book is about experiencing freedom and wanting to do everything by yourself without listening to the ones who care for you… A great love story and bedtime story!
31 Mar 2008 at 8.22 am
[...] in his pyjamas… Duck in the Truck comes from the very talented Jez Alborough, author of our previously reviewed, Hug!. Duck’s truck gets stuck in the muck, so Frog, Sheep and Goat all lend a hand. With the [...]
29 Apr 2008 at 10.03 pm