Feature Friday

"Lovely" Books for February

Olive My Love

by Vivian Walsh, illustrated by J.Otto Seibold

From the creative team behind Olive, the Other Reindeer, Olive is taken on another journey. Her friend and flying dog Dexter (like cupid) drops a large heart at her front door. Olive, worried that Dexter dropped his heart by accident, decides to return it to him. She fills a sack with fresh biscuits and heads out. Along the way she befriends a squirrel named Handler and a spider named Weaver. Together the three friends work their way back to Dexter’s house only to find out that Dexter wanted to give Olive his heart, to keep. The friends end their adventure with a wonderful picnic of bonbons, biscuits, nut chews and fly wings. This is a wonderful story about the love found in friendship. You can’t help but love Olive’s warm and open character.

Slugs in Love

by Susan Pearson, illustrated by Kevin O’Malley

Margaret loves Herbie but she’s too shy to tell him herself. One day while in the garden Margaret’s mind filled with thoughts of Herbie so she wrote him a love poem. Herbie found the poem and wanted to meet Margaret, so he wrote her a poem back but Margaret never found it. Margaret keeps writing notes and Herbie continues to respond only having his notes washed away or moved. Eventually the two connect and stay together. This is one of my seven-year-old’s favourite books. She loves the cute little poems the two slugs send back and forth to each other.

Yuck, a Love Story

by Don Gillmor, illustrated by Marie-Louise Gay

Austin Grouper is a boy with a dog a best friend and a bike. His life is full. Then a little girl named Amy move in next door. Yuck, is Austin’s response. In typical boy style, Austin thinks everything about Amy is yucky. But everyday he visits her. For her birthday he wrestles the moon from the sky to give her. The wonderful interaction between Amy and Austin is wonderful and so true; parent and children alike will enjoy their conversations. I love how Austin decides he doesn’t like Amy for no real reason but ends up being her friend in the end. Some friendships sneak up on you like that.