Max and Tallulah

We don’t make a big deal about Valentine’s Day in our house. Last year we just made heart shaped sandwiches for Mr B and a heart shaped cake for us all to enjoy and this year it was just heart shaped toast (that went so quickly I forgot to take photos!). Mushroom helped me make the toast and as we were doing so, he asked why. I told him that some people celebrate Valentine’s Day in a big way and some just think of it as a reminder to tell those we love… That we love them.

That evening seemed like an appropriate time to read him our latest Parragon Book Buddies book! Max and Tallulah is a lovely little love story about a shy zebra, Max, who wants to tell his friend how much he loves her. He doesn’t have the words so he tries all sorts of ways to get her attention but each time, something goes wrong. The fruit he picks for her floats away, his moon dance goes completely unnoticed and his spectacular hat just frightens her.

 

Finally, he decides just to be himself.

Maxbeinghimself_MotheringMushroom

Whether you read it as a romantic love story or just as a way of introducing the subject of being yourself in friendships, it’s a lovely little tale. Mushroom enjoyed the story and said that Max was ‘silly’ and Tallulah ‘probably laughed’ when he finally told her all about the things he’d tried to get her attention. He said he should have just ‘asked her to play’ from the start. I love the way children approach relationships, and hope that Mushroom always remembers this approach and continues to believe that simply finding something to do together (whether that be ‘play,’ or something else!) will work into adulthood.

You can find out more about Max and Tallulah author and illustrator Beverley Gooding and her creative process over on Parragon Books’ website.

Disclosure: Mushroom and I are Parragon Book Buddies and receive a new book to read and review each month. All views are our own. Read my full PR and disclosure policy here.