Accident, by Andrea Tsurumi

I try really hard to provide the kids with the best quality picture books. I follow publishers, authors, and illustrators on social media and reserve books or suggest purchases at the library. I think I currently have about 30 books on my reserve list, so most weeks when we get to the library there is a nice little stack of hand-picked, top-shelf (punny, again), quality picture books for me to grab, instead of sifting through the selves amidst the chaos that is story time.

During the school holidays, my big boy came to story time and he did a bit of shelf sifting and came back with 2 books that were on my ‘To-Be-Read’ list but which I hadn’t yet reserved. It was a really happy moment for me. It made me hope that his taste for picture books has been honed such that he seeks out those of the highest quality. Kind of like the theory that if people are conditioned to a high standard they will not allow inferiority to distract them.

Accident, by Andrea Tsurumi was one of the books he came back with, and it a little ripper. The main character is Lola, a young armadillo (an underutilised character type in children’s books if you ask me) who accidentally causes a mess, and is afraid of the consequences. Her initial solution is one I can totally relate to: “I’ll hide in the library! They have books and bathrooms”.

On her way to the safe haven of the library, Lola finds others in the same predicament as herself. These other causers of accidents take her advice and together they all make their way towards the perceived sanctuary, passing many other disasters. The pictures are quite interesting, and slightly older kids will have fun looking through the pages for all the accidents that are happening around them.

The book comes to a really nice ending with Lola learning that everybody makes mistakes and that even small people can try to make amends. This is a good one for our girl with perfectionist tendencies, to whom we often seem to be discussing bouncing back after mistakes. We have had this from the library at the same time as the classic, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Day which helps kids see that sometimes life just doesn’t go the way you want. This book takes it that little be further to show how to overcome those bad moments, days or seasons of your life.

Click here for some lovely colouring pages and other worksheets for this book.