The Girls is a beautifully illustrated picture book which follows four girls from childhood through to adulthood. It celebrates the bonds of female friendship and highlights the support that friends can give us through the different stages of our lives, during bad times as well as good.
The Story: Four girls, with very different personalities, Lottie, Leela, Sasha and Alice, spend time playing in and around an apple tree. As they spend time together their friendship deepens and they share worries, secrets, disagreements and successes. The girls grow up, learn new things, start work, fall in love and their lives go in different directions but through good times and bad times (and everything in between!) they are there to support each other.
The Girls is a fabulous celebration of friendship. Despite different cultural backgrounds, different personal attributes and differences in character, the girls’ experiences highlight the fact that we can all be unique and similar at the same time 🙂
Sasha is very practical and helps when someone gets hurt, Lottie is the adventurous character, Leela is full of inspirational suggestions and Alice makes them laugh. They all share wonderful qualities too, they’re kind, ambitious and full of love and respect for each other.
Diversity is woven through the girls’ experiences as their lives take different paths. Their childhood activities around the apple tree have provided the foundation for strong friendships which support them as they grow and make their way in the world.
Jenny Løvlie’s fabulous illustrations are full of emotion and life and it’s interesting to watch the girls as they grow up, interact with others, form relationships and create families of their own. It’s wonderful to see the diversity of some of our family’s experiences woven into the story and the illustrations. My daughter loves the page showing the Indian wedding and my favourite illustration shows Lottie reading a story to a group of children on one of her adventures abroad.
The Girls is a fabulously inspiring book which shows that childhood friendships can last for a lifetime and support us as we grow. It’s a great book to read with all children, boys also share many of The Girls’ experiences and emotions and it’s important for them to see inspirational female characters in books too.
Age Range: 3 +
Author: Lauren Ace / Illustrator: Jenny Løvlie
Thank you to Little Tiger Press for sending us a copy of this wonderful picture book. It’s a fabulous picture book to give to your favourite friends.
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