Media Macaroni

It’s high time I write a post about Charlie and Lola. I can’t believe I’m 30 posts in without writing about this family favorite. About a year and a half ago we were visiting my niece (then 5) who was watching the show. Olive pretty much loves whatever her cousin does, so she was hooked. I was struck by how much I enjoyed it, too, both for the lovely collage art style and for the characters. When we arrived back in NYC we started watching it on a regular basis, and then discovered the wonderful books by Lauren Child on which the show is based.

Charlie and Lola are a brother and sister who interact in everyday situations. They hang out at home, see friends, and go to the park and library. Any place fancier than that exists in their rich imaginations. Each book and episode begins with Charlie telling the audience, “I have this little sister, Lola. She is small and very funny.” I can’t even begin to tell you how sweet the sibling relationship is here. I’ll look at Olive while I’m watching the show and my heart breaks that she’s an only child. I want to give her a sibling right then and there. Our neighbor tells me that his son thinks that he’s Charlie and that his 2-year-old sister is Lola and he’ll act out situations, even doing Charlie’s British accent. 

Check out this series if you haven’t already, either the books or the show. At this point many of the books are based on show episodes, but this is a rare case where they’re so well done that they don’t feel like a book thrown together on the cheap. It blew Olive’s mind the first time she encountered this crossover – the TV was telling the same story as her book!

On Amazon: Whoops! But It Wasn’t Me (this one is our favorite)

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 10th, 2008 at 11:05 pm and is filed under Books, Television. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.