Lucy Ladybird by Sharon King-Chai

Treating everyone equally is such an incredibly important message to instill in our children from a very young age. And in Lucy Ladybird by Sharon King-Chai this is the main theme. Published by Templar Publishing it is a beautifully colourful book about embracing and celebrating difference.

Lucy Ladybird has no spots. She looks at her fellow ladybirds and wishes she could be like them but they cruelly tell her she isn’t one of them. So Lucy leaves, alone and sad. As she travels through the countryside, watching the seasons change, she meets four different creatures. Lucy reaches out to each of them, wishing she could be as beautiful as them but each one in turn helps Lucy to see just how special she is.

Still desperate to have spots, Lucy accepts a different colour spot from her four new friends before heading back to see the other ladybirds. Inspired by Lucy’s new found confidence in herself they soon realise how positive differences are and don’t hold back in expressing their own individuality.

Using a mixture of collage and painted illustrations Sharon King-Chai has created wonderful images that are rich in colour and texture. As well as using this book to help teach children their colours it would also be a helpful when discussing the seasons. Lucy meets a new friend in each season with beautiful spreads showcasing the beauty of all four.

There’s a brilliant fold out surprise at the end of the book which always creates that “Aaaahh!” moment from my children.

With so many colourful spots in this book we decided to make our own spotty pictures. We collected circle shaped items to help us create spots as well as lots of different coloured paints.

It was interesting to see how different a four-year-old and a one-year-old would approach this task. My four-year-old was keen to keep his spots neat and create patterns whereas my one-year-old is in the stage of marveling at his own abilities to make marks.

If I’d done this activity just with an older child I would have introduced cutting circles out of collage materials to practice scissor skills and glued them on to the paper too.

My four-year-old loved the images of Lucy and even painted her out of spots.

We always enjoy linking our craft activites to books we’ve read. We’re always on the look out for new ideas so we’d love to read about your bookish activities. Have you been inspired by a book to be creative?

Buy the book from Waterstones.

Many thanks to Templar Publishing for sending a copy of this book for review.

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