Ava Thursday: Lulu's First Day of School

Ava created and illustrated a book the other day, drawing and stapling the pages together herself. Titled, Lulu's First Day of School, it tells the story of Lulu, Ava's teddy bear, going to, uh, well -- her first day of school. She's accompanied by her two friends, Miss Ashlee the Tiger and Mr. Oofee the alligator. Ava made the book for her teacher, and since we won't be able to own this wonderful piece of literature, I had to scan it pronto. (As usual, you can click on the images to view them larger.)


This is the cover. That's the title written out by Ava phonetically. (She's still learning to read & write.) Here we see Lulu and her friends approaching the school in a school bus. That's a rainbow spanning over the scene, drawn with a cool multi-colored crayon stick thingy. Details I like here are the flag and our little characters in the bus there.


This is interesting. This is the inside cover page, and when I asked my ever-observant daughter about this, she said that it was where you find out who wrote the book. You know, like where all the smallprint is.


Here, Lulu and friends are in class, being taught by a "Mrs. Equa."


Recess! Time to play on the playground. I love the way Ava drew the cute little characters here.


Oh, RATS. It's raining! Originally, Ava had drawn it snowing here, but I guess she wanted to add some color. Just add blue, and you've got a rainy day.


This is the back cover. I'm intrigued by this, because it's almost like she's thinking about how books have a certain design to them, with a particular scene of the story illustrated on the back. And so here, this is Lulu and a friend walking in the hall (with a clock on the wall). Very intricate drawing.

Funny thing about all this is that I actually created a book myself back when I was in third grade. I was SO into maps and states that at one point I drew each and every state on its own page, (yes, all 50 of 'em) and had it bound (somehow). I remember taking it to school with me and showing it to some of my classmates, of which I'm sure they were probably THRILLED. At one point, I decided that hey, I made a book and well, books are supposed to be in libraries, right? Logic told me at that time that his book of mine should be in the library, then. It's informative and maybe someone would like to check out all the 50 states drawn by a local author -- you never know. So I walked into our elementary school's library and went up to the Geography section, where all the books about the United States were (a section that I was very familiar with, apparently) and inserted my 50-page book where it should go.

I never got that book back. I mean, I had my name on it -- didn't our librarian know that the book was done by a student and that she would want to return it to its rightful owner? Ahhh, oh well. Such loss is inevitable when you're a young artist growing up, I guess.