That’s NOT how you do it!

Author: Ariane Hofmann-Maniyar
Illustrator: Ariane Hoffman-Maniyar
Publisher: Child's Play

Lucy the Cat knows how to do everything! Others even ask her for her help if they are unsure. She’s especially good at making paper stars. Then, Toshi the Panda arrives, and he does things very differently from Lucy – and she thinks he is doing it all wrong. But when Toshi offers Lucy a gift he has made out of paper, she sees that Toshi is good at doing things his way – as she is good at doing things hers, and then they start to learn from each other.

The messages we found in this book:

Acknowledgement:

Children can often feel proud of themselves for being good at something – but they can also be confused if others don’t do the same thing in similar circumstances. This can lead to doubts about their own abilities, and suspicion about others.

Guidance:

Toshi the Panda carries on doing things his way, but makes a gift of his paper crane, and Lucy the sees that Toshi is doing things differently, but equally well. She treasures the paper crane and his kindness in giving it to her enables her to see that doing things differently isn’t a bad thing.

The book advocates working together, and combining skills to get an even more satisfactory result!

Being good at things and having confidence in your abilities is great!
Others may be equally talented – but might do things in a slightly different way.
Accepting that there are many ways of being good at things is a skill in itself.

Hope & Inspiration:

Toshi and Lucy combine their talents, and together, they are able to create “a whole flock of paper cranes and a night sky full of stars”. Teamwork prevails!