Tag Little Bigfoot (Sasquatch)

Friendship Rules: Lucia & Lawrence / The Sasquatch and the Lumberjack

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Lucia & Lawrence
Joanna Francis
New Frontier Publishing

Lucia and Lawrence live next door to one another; their interests are very different: Lucia is dreamy, wildly imaginative and creative; Lawrence has an analytical mind, filling his head with numbers.
One rainy day when Lawrence first moved in, Lucia introduced herself with an invitation to play.

She also asked him to imagine a rainbow, something her neighbour couldn’t do; nor did he have the courage to go out and play with Lucia, so she takes matters into her own hands.

Before long the two have become friends. Lucia decides to invite Lawrence to her birthday party but still he cannot bring himself to accept.

Instead, busy in his room, he finds his own way to celebrate the occasion. That night he contacts Lucia again, informing her that he has made something for her.
The wait next day is long but eventually in her inimitable effervescent way, there she is …

It turns out she’s also brought her crayons along and with those puts the finishing touches to her gift. But the very best present of all, both for Lucia and Lawrence, is their togetherness.

There’s a wonderful whimsiness about Joanna Francis’ illustrations for her warm-hearted story of reaching out, find a way, understanding and finally, friendship.

The Sasquatch and the Lumberjack
Crix Sheridan
Little Bigfoot (Sasquatch)

If you don’t know what a sasquatch is, let’s say it’s a kind of yeti type creature, huge and hairy – think Bigfoot.

In this wonderful tale with minimal words, Sheridan creates a tale of a highly unlikely friendship that grows between a woodcutter and a sasquatch after they encounter one another in the forest and experience the seasons in each other’s company.

Together they have a lot of exciting adventures: the richly hued Autumn provides a foragers’ feast.

Winter offers icy surfaces for skating and and snowy ones for ski-ing and sledging.

Spring brings renewal to the forest with fragrant flowers,

hiking and biking while Summer brings surfing, and swimming under golden skies.

Then Autumn is back and the cycle begins all over with the friends ready for a fresh round of delights.

It’s terrific fun and full of heart with Sheridan’s cracking illustrations doing most of the talking.

Frank the Seven-Legged Spider

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Frank the Seven-Legged Spider
Michaele Razi
Little Bigfoot (Sasquatch)

Frank the spider enjoys spinning beautiful webs;

he also enjoys scaring humans; most of all though he likes his eight ‘beautiful, glorious legs.’

One day though, Frank wakes up minus one of his prized limbs: with only seven legs, is he still a spider?

Once he’s got the hang of being a tad lop-sided, Frank sets off in search of his missing leg. He tries several likely spots including a dark, warm cave

but no matter where he searches there isn’t any sign of his lost leg.

Fortunately just when everything seems totally dismal some ants come along and what they tell him makes Frank realise that all the things that make him spidery – web spinning, leg wiggling and scurrying – are still on his can do list.
Hurrah! Identity crisis averted; bring on self-acceptance; for sure, despite his physical disability, Frank’s lost none of his capacity for pranks.

That final spread doesn’t quite hold the last laugh though. After it come a credits page showing another spider holding something that might just belong to our protagonist …

Michaele Razi’s straightforward text and abundance of speech bubbles, in combination with her uncluttered illustrations executed in a carefully considered colour palette, present the physically challenged arachnid as a positive character ready to take on whatever life throws at him. Pretty cool!