Baby book club: Little Owl’s Night by Divya Srinivasan

Hi! Welcome to our first book club. Today we’re discussing Little Owl’s Night by Divya Srinivasan.

Tilly: I don’t like sleeping so I like this book! Little Owl has all these great adventures at night!

Marian: I just woke up from my nap! Now I want to play, play, play, and I really love playing with books. While Mommy reads Little Owl’s Night, I’m going to read Baby Feminist.

Tilly: I like playing with books too! I like to turn the pages as quickly as I can. Speed reading, you know. My favourite animal in this book is the fox. I have a burp cloth with foxes on it. In the book Fox seems like a very nice character — he comes to say hello without trying to eat Little Owl or anything. Not like the fox in The Gruffalo.

Marian: Speaking of foxes, here’s my fox paci paci! It’s funny. It has a fox on the end. I like to play with it. Ooo, Mommy just made a funny snoring noise! What’s she doing? I’m going to take the book away from her and see what’s going on. A bear! It’s taking a nap like I was, and doesn’t want to come out and play with Little Owl. That’s why Mommy was snoring. I want to play with Little Owl!

Tilly: We should play with Little Owl together! Look at all the pictures of him having fun at night. I bet he’d let us go with him and see the animals. I like the pictures in this book. Mummy says the bits where the sky changes colours and it’s all blend-y is called a gradient. That doesn’t happen in many of my books.

Marian: Your mummy sounds smart. I wonder if I can find another one of my books with animals in it, so Mommy can read her animal book, while I read my own?

Tilly: Maybe. You should try. My mummy likes to read books with lots of words and no pictures. They’re boring to listen to but fun to rip the pages. Mummy gets mad when I do that though. The words in this book don’t rhyme, which is a little disappointing. But it’s still nice to listen to. Even though it doesn’t rhyme, I’ve heard worse.

Marian: I don’t mind that it doesn’t rhyme, because Mommy makes different noises when she reads about each animal. I love animal noises. I found a farmyard board book to chew on — I mean read — while she finishes Little Owl’s Night, because farm animals make funny noises too. Do you think we’ll ever get to meet any of these animals?

Tilly: We sing ‘Old MacDonald Had A Farm’ at story time so it’s like meeting the animals! I’ve seen animals at the zoo. The best animal is Luke, my grandma’s dog. There aren’t any books about Luke. That is a shame.