These last nine months have seen me living literally next door to a library. Anyone who has read this blog before will know how much I love books and am a huge supporter of libraries, yet for the first few months of living here we hardly visited. I’m not totally sure why, but I’ve put this right recently though and the kids and I have become library regulars, even remembering to return books before they become overdue! Both kids have really discovered the joys of audio books and our local library actually has a huge collection of them which they can borrow for free. I just daren’t tell the kids that they’re apparently allowed 30 items out at once or the flat would be full!
I can’t keep pace at the moment with the amount that Little Miss C is reading and she can easily polish off a book in a couple of days. Taking her to the library is a wonderful way of meeting her book needs without it costing me the earth. I’ve also remembered just how helpful library staff can be. Master C was complaining that there weren’t enough train books when we were there recently, and when a member of staff overheard him he want out of his way to find him as many train and transport books as he could. Master C was over the moon!
I’ve recently seen a couple of comedy sketches featuring mobile libraries, but I have to admit to never having come across a floating library before today. Birdy & Bou: The Floating Library is centred around one though. Bou, the red-eared panda is excited to hear the familiar noise of the floating library one morning, so he rushes off to borrow his favourite book. When he gets there disaster strikes, when the librarian tells him that Birdy has already borrowed the book he is after.
He rushes off in search of Birdy and his favourite book and in the process discovers that their shared love of this particular book is the perfect basis for a new friendship.
The Floating Library is a lovely tale of two wonderful things in life – books and friends – and I really like seeing them brought together like this and the way the book shows that a love of books is something that can be shared with other people. Reading is so often depicted as a solitary activity which need not be the case at all.
The artwork in Birdy & Bou has some lovely strong primary colours making it ideal for sharing with young readers. I’d say that it is actually a tad young for Master C now, so more targeted towards the pre-school age range, but perfect for children who enjoy a trip to the library.
Birdy & Bou: The Floating Library by Mandy Stanley & David Bedford was published in paperback by Simon & Schuster on 22 February 2018. ISBN 978-1-4711-4651-0 and priced at £6.99. It is available to buy online here.
Disclaimer: We were sent a copy of Birdy & Bou: The Floating Library for the purposes of this review. All opinions remain my own. This post contains affiliate links.
Leave a Reply