A Cedric and Boo Book: Two Birthdays

A nice story about friendship. Boo and Cedric are best friends. When it's Boo's birthday, Cedric makes a huge effort and they have a lovely day. Shortly after, when it's Cedric's birthday, Boo forgets!

This book provides a really interesting opportunity for children to talk about cause and effect in terms of how their actions could affect somebody else and their feelings. It gives a really good chance to discuss each of the character's actions and how they have made each other feel, and could be a good way to talk about similar problems with their own friends.

Often, children think that as soon as somebody does something unkind, whether it's intentional or not, it means they will never be friends again. This reinforces how people can do unkind things but that is just part of friendship, as well as showing a nice idea of how to make it up to one of your friends when you need to.

The vocabulary is pretty simple, allowing young children to access it, and the pictures are also very child friendly. The animals are made up of different simple shapes and colours. The backgrounds are simple with key images to develop a picture of each scene in their imagination without crowding the pages too much.

My little boy enjoyed discussing how the crocodile must be feeling when he is sitting in the bath with tears rolling down his cheeks. There are plenty of pictures with great visual clues towards the characters' feelings. His favourite spread was the birthday party double page. It has lots of objects and activities to talk about and lots of different animals that look like they're having a great time.

Two Birthdays also ends with a 'friends forever' song, which children may enjoy singing and learning together. This would be a nice addition if you were going to read it in a reception class at school as part of a discussion on friendships.

Board Book / Reviewed by Lucy Hopkins, teacher

Suggested Reading Age 3+