Little Lou and the woolly mammoth by Paula Bowles

Bloomsbury, 2014. ISBN 9781408839669.
(Age: 4+) Picture book, Humour, Friendship. Even when surrounded by a gaggle of toys, Little Lou is lonely and wanting a friend to play with. Following a long piece of wool through her bundle of one time friends, she tosses aside her toys, Olly Owl, Sock Monster and Stripey Whale, only to find that the wool will not come to an end. She tugs and tugs but all to no avail. She then follows it high and low, around and around till she finds that it comes to a tangled, messy end.
She finds a huge woolly mammoth and then must run as it follows her around and around, zig-zagging around the room, until it starts to unravel. Little Lou is thrilled with the small mammoth and runs to pick it up, but this time it is the mammoth who runs from Little Lou.
But all ends happily as the two become new best friends.
A lovely text with words in bold, begging the reader to put a stress on these, while following the long thread of wool as it winds around the pages in blues and mauves.
The soft watercolour and pencil illustrations suit the story well, underlining the range of toys in Lou's bedroom, creating a huge mammoth on the early pages and paring it down to a manageable size as the story proceeds. I particularly liked the afternoon tea set out on the endpapers, and the expressions on the faces of the rejected toys.
This is a charming tale of friends and friendship, suitable for pre-school readers in groups or alone.
Fran Knight