Beautiful Bananas by Elizabeth Laird

Beautiful Bananas

by Elizabeth Laird

A young girl's ordinary journey through the jungle turns into an amusing adventure, thanks to a few surprising encounters along the way.

Beatrice sets out through the lush African jungle to visit her beloved granddad. She carries with her a bunch of beautiful bananas as a special gift for him.

But her journey is interrupted as she encounters friendly but mischievous animals, including a giraffe, a parrot, monkeys...even a swarm of bees! When she loses the bananas, every animal tries to replace them with something special, but each gift gets lost in turn.

Finally, a friendly elephant reaches high into the trees. Will Granddad get his beautiful bananas after all?

Author Elizabeth Laird's clever, circular folktale is complemented by illustrator Liz Pichon's bright, bold images of the African jungle and the colorful and exotic animals that live there.

Reviewed by inlibrisveritas on

4 of 5 stars

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I am a sucker for beautifully illustrated kids books, and this is one that immediately called out to me.

The vibrant colors and gorgeous pictures are definitely what earned most of the stars for this book, but the story is pretty cute on it’s own. Beatrice is on her way to her grandfather’s house with a bunch of bananas, but along the way she loses them to an animal who gives her something in return…and the process repeats several times.


It is a story I’ve seen around in other forms, so if you have one like this already it might be a skip for you. It is a cute, light read that its definitely something I can see a child picking up multiple times.

Despite the slightly repetitious nature of the book I do think this one makes for a beautiful book to have on the little one’s shelves

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  • 7 March, 2015: Reviewed