BooBoo, by Olivier Dunrea

I would like to begin by noting that I totally do not understand the appeal of this book. It is about a gosling. A small blue gosling named BooBoo. Who likes to eat. Lorrie, however, adores the book, and demands it approximately 25 times every single day, so I thought I should give it a mention.

The pictures in this entire series, by Olivier Dunrea, are very cute and very simple. There isn't much background, and the characters are drawn very simplistically. It's very easy for even very small children to follow the action in this book. "BooBoo" was one of Lorrie's first words, in reference to this book and its main character.

There isn't a whole lot to the story. BooBoo is a gosling. She eats things. There's a litany of all the things she eats. Then she eats a bubble, and it makes her burp. She burps a lot. Then she drinks water, and is better. I suppose there's a lesson in there about not eating everything you see (underscored by the last page, where she's staring with fascination at a beehive), but mostly it's just a series of actions strung together, more than a coherent plot. BooBoo eats things.

BooBoo is not the first book in this series, though it works fine as a stand-alone. There are many, many books about these little goslings. Gossie, about the gosling who wears red boots, Gossie and Gertie, about Gossie and her blue-booted friend, Ollie the Stomper, and so on. As a word of caution, I bought Gossie and Friends and Gossie's Busy Day, the flap books, and found them very different in pacing, with too much on a page for small children. Be aware before adding them to your collection.

Other Gossie books by Olivier Dunrea: