Story Time: Hooray for Fish by Lucy Cousins

April Fool's translates to "Poisson D'Avril" in French. Now, I know what you're thinking, and you're not wrong... What do fish have to do with April Fool's? For the French, everything!

There is a long standing tradition in France of colouring and cutting out paper fish on the first day of April and sticking them to people's backs as a form of practical joke. Children all over the country do their best colouring jobs on a sea's worth of multicoloured cardboard creatures, and then have a blast running around sticking their creations to the backs of unsuspecting victims. No one is quite sure where this mischievous little tradition came from, but it certainly is a lot of fun! 

Which is why, with "Poisson D'Avril" right around the corner, I thought it a fitting opportunity to introduce one of my very favourite books, Hooray for Fish by Lucy Cousins. This book is amazing on so many levels. The story starts with a little orange fish who invites you to come along and meet all his fishy friends. You proceed to meet the ele-fish, the twin fin-fin fish, the eye fish, shy fish, fly fish, and sky fish.

I just love the painted illustrations as well as the many different kinds of fish Lucy Cousins came up with. The musicality and rhymes contained within the text make it a consummate pleasure to read. Can you guess which fish will be your little one's favourite in the end? 

Young ones love the bright colours and patterns of all the fish, and when they grow a little older, you can introduce them to numbers and have fun counting along with the fish! Finally, Hooray for Fish is chock full of interesting adjectives, perfect for developing your little one's vocabulary like the book Dangerous by Tim Warnes does.

Lucille's Hooray for Fish is just perfect for preschoolers between the ages of two to five.  

As you all know by now, I love to do crafts inspired by books, so here are some ideas based off of this one: 

- Get inspired by Lucy Cousins fish and design your own! Discover ideas on our Pinterest board: Story Time Craft "Hooray for Fish".

- Paint your own little fish and give them names! I've created a fish coloring page you can download, print, color and cut here. 

- To promote pattern recognition skills, try to find the same patterns that are present in the book in nature or in your immediate surroundings.

Happy Reading and/or Crafting!