Funny

Lola the aardvark spills orange juice all over a chair in her living room. She decides to run off and hide in the library for the rest of eternity to avoid it. Along the way, she encounters numerous other disasters, fiascos, mayhem, calamity, and catastrophes. She then meets a little bird that tells her it is all an accident and that accidents can be fixed. After helping others fix their accidents, Lola heads home to fix hers. When she's home she finds that her parent also has had an accident and has spilled coffee all over the place.

Lola knocks over a full pitcher and, worrying that she's "ruined everything," heads off to the library where she thinks she can hide from this catastrophe. Along the way, she meets with several others who have encountered "disaster" through similar mishaps. At last, Lola and her new compatriots are told that what actually happened were all accidents and the only thing these mistakes require is help in remedying them.

I really like the message of this book, as young children often fear the worse when they have merely made a mistake. But they also aren't told they can get away with zero consequences -- when they cause a problem, even if just accidentally, they must work to fix the damage.

However, the book itself was overwhelming to me. The illustrations have so much action and chaos that I felt like I didn't know where to look first and couldn't take it all in. Small children may love all that motion and detail, but I did not. ( )