Let’s Visit the Olobobs
Let’s Visit the Olobobs
Leigh Hodgkinson
12pp., board book, RRP $A12.99
9781408897621
Olobob Top is a children’s television series currently screening on ABC Kids in Australia. It follows a group of young creative creatures called the Olobobs. Tib, Lalloo and Bobble live in a big forest and have fun playing, exploring and solving everyday problems. In each episode, they work together combining shapes, colours and patterns to create a new character, who joins in with the Olobobs’ fun, while a friendly narrator encourages them to think for themselves to solve everyday problems using their imagination and creativity.
So this lift-the-flap book and its companion Make Your Own Olobob Home an activity book that demands their input will encourage very young readers to find their favourite characters in another medium.
Make Your Own Olobob Home
Years ago I was somewhat sceptical about these sorts of books that were clearly spin-offs from movies and television but after seeing the joy of a little boy who suddenly discovered The Wiggles among the titles on the shelves of KMart and demanding that his mother buy it for him (if she didn’t, I would have) I realised their power and importance in discovering the joy of reading. To discover favourite and familiar characters in books not only sets up expectations and anticipation but also encourages the child to bring what they already know to the text, to test what they expect and what happens against that prior knowledge and understand that books can be better because you can enjoy them at your own page, flick back and forth and return to them time and again is a critical step in the learning journey.
Focusing on shapes, colours and patterns both of these titles (with several more to come over the next two years) encourage interaction and learning and demonstrate the rigorous quality required for books for even our earliest readers these days.
