Book review: One Thing by Lauren Child
My children are in their 20s now but my heart still skips a beat with happiness when a new Lauren Child book arrives in the post.
Lauren Child is the award-winning, bestselling author of some of the best children’s books around – from Clarice Bean and Ruby Redfort to the incomparable Charlie and Lola.
With text that twirls exuberantly across the page and brightly coloured, multi-textured illustrations, her stories stand out from the crowd. Not only that, they’ve inspired a whole generation of children to enthuse about books and reading.
Now Charlie and Lola are back with a stunning picture book about counting. In typical Lauren Child style One Thing makes numbers fun, beautiful and utterly original. Numbers skitter through the pages as Charlie and his little sister Lola set off to the shops with their mum. Along the way the irrepressible Lola tries to guess the number of leaves on a tree and the number of ducks following them through the water meadow. When the little girl talks her mum into letting her buy 12 stickers she not entirely surprisingly manages to use them all up on the way home. Five are stuck on the pavement, three on a tree, two on her shoes – you get the picture.
Fifteen years after the first Charlie and Lola book was published the dynamic duo are still going strong. And one thing’s for sure – One Thing brings numbers, counting and maths alive for pre-schoolers.
One Thing by Lauren Child (Orchard, £6.99)