I Once Knew a Girl by David Lucido
In the book, I Once Knew a Girl (Lulu Publishing Services), author David Lucido uses a basic formula to attract and delight children: a wide range of people photographs and a bunch of silly rhymes revolving around the names of girls. Nothing fancy. Just simple, wholesome fun.
The book’s subtitle, “A Light-Hearted Look at Diversity,” brings with it a message Lucido tries to impress upon his young audience.
“The images are by turns cheerful, pleasant, poignant or stunning,” says Lucido. “They are employed to be pleasing to the eye of the reader and at the same time to give the subtle message of diversity, inclusiveness, acceptance and tolerance.”
The girls in the images, ranging from young children to adults, are of all sorts of ethnicities, cultures, heritages and nations. While some images are straight-ahead portraits, others portray their subjects playing games, sniffing flowers, riding bikes, playing with animals, eating different foods and spending time with family and friends.
The text doesn’t necessarily coincide with the images — think of the book as random photographs with rhymes about random girls. But the juxtaposition also serves to remind us to challenge our presumptions about race and ethnicity, especially when it comes to people’s names and characteristics.
Says Lucido, “I loved silly rhymes when I was a child, and I’m convinced children generally enjoy the sound of rhymes.” The book is filled with rhyming couplets about various characters, such as:
“I once knew a girl named Reese,
who lived near a pond that had geese.”
“I once knew a girl named Louise,
who could often be seen eating cheese.”
“I once knew a girl named Yolanda,
whose favorite bear was the panda.”
Many of the couplets would make good springboards for young children to tell their own stories about the characters, helping drive home the idea that the world is full of as many types of people as you could imagine, and then some.
Lucido, a 75-year-old retiree, crafted the book from his own experience reading to younger siblings, nieces and nephews, noting that they nearly always enjoyed being read to.
“Children are honest, and if they sit and pay attention, then you know they got some pleasure from the sounds, from their own imagination. This book is an attempt to be a voice of acceptance and inclusiveness — to whatever small degree it can be — of girls and women from all over the world.”
I Once Knew a Girl is available for purchase.
