I love Easter by Anna Walker

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Scholastic Australia, 2012. ISBN:  9781741696448.
(Age: 3-6) Hard cover. Picture book. Ollie (the curious Zebra) and the irrepressible Fred (the dog) are back in another seasonal adventure. I Love Easter explores the Western cultural norms of Easter. Ollie and Fred visit an Easter fair, make a hat for the Easter Hat parade, watch chicks and ducks, and hunt for eggs.  
Using pen and ink illustrations with plenty of white space, Anna Walker again shows her talent as both an author and illustrator in this recommended book for children age 2 to 6. By writing in a predictable and rhyme filled fashion across all her books, Walker makes her work accessible and inspiring time and time again.
Young readers will delight in the familiarity of the writing style and illustrations, with a range of other books by Walker covering people and events such as Christmas, Birthdays, Grandmothers, Dads, Mums, Dancing, and Singing.
The books are ideal read alouds for the preschool set, but are also highly useful for new readers, with a familiar set of characters and a predictable writing format. All too often, finding books with authentic yet accessible text is challenging, but Walker's presentation of the lovely and welcoming Ollie achieves just this. Many of Walker's books, I Love Easter included, feature sight words with which many young readers are familiar, and the pictures correlate with the text, enhancing the use of reading cues.
Moving beyond the books themselves, the I Love series provides a natural opportunity for extension, inspiring readers to create I love books of their own. A well timed and enjoyable Easter read.
Freya Lucas

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