Saturday, May 31, 2014

Little Croc's purse by Lizzie Finlay

While playing hide and seek one day Little Croc finds a pretty purse.  Inside there are five silver coins, seven golden coins and crisp 20-croc note  There is also a secret something hidden in the lining.

There is a strong moral presented in this book about the rewards that come from honesty and from giving but these are told in such a joyous and carefree way that Little Croc's purse is sure to make you smile.  Young readers will also love the neat pattern as Little Croc retraces his journey using the reward he has from finding the purse as a way to share his happiness.

"Little Croc divided his treasure into three envelopes labelled 'spend', 'share' and 'save'.  He used his 'spend' envelope to pay (for his lemonade, three envelopes and a pencil) and tucked the others safely into his purse."

There are some lovely touches in this little picture book - the name of the owner is Mrs Doolally.  The purse smelled of perfume and the cafe called Croc Monsieur's.

This week we read The Swap and I picked up Little Croc's purse because I was hunting for other stories about crocodiles.  It will be fun to share this book with our youngest students.

You might like to read the Kirkus review.

Along with making worthy points about the benefits of honesty, modeling responsible financial behavior and even somehow managing to keep Little Croc from coming off as a goody-goody, she introduces a young hero who is refreshingly oblivious to gender expectations—bravo.


No comments: