Here comes Lolo
Book Details
Here comes Lolo
Niki Daly, London: Otter-Barry Books, pb, 978 1 910 95977 0, 2020, £6.99, 78pp.
Fiction, 5-8 years
This book is part of a mini series; it consists of four short stories all featuring Lolo, a spirited ordinary seven-year-old girl of colour. This reviewer’s favourite story among the four is entitled A Gold Star and a Kiss for Lolo.
In this story, Lolo is desperate to earn a gold star at school for being the best or most improved reader in the class for that particular week. Lolo achieves her goal and is so happy that when she buys a doughnut from a stand run by her friend Sharifa, when her gold start falls from her head she doesn’t even notice. Lolo gets home and finds her loss. She is utterly distraught. Her grandmother kindly offers to go and look for Lolo’s missing star. Sharifa, it transpires, has put the star on her own head and now regards it as her property. Being older and more mature, Lolo lets her friend keep the star that Lolo herself had so avidly desire. Proud of Lolo both for winning the ward and for letting the talisman go, grandma makes Lolo a hair clip in the shape of a star.
The other stories in the volume carry on a similar vein. The outstanding feature of this series of books is that very few books for children of this age (say 5 to 8 years) combine a highly readable tone and a feisty young character of colour.
Review by Rebecca Butler