Along Came a Different

Product Information

Reds love red. They love nothing more than singing praises of themselves and agree that red is the best thing to be..until some yellows appear who are just as convinced that they are the best thing ever. Add some blue to the mix and chaos arises as they squabble and make rules to avoid each other. Then some more ‘differents’ appear and it gets harder and harder to enforce the rules… A very special picture book that supports the adage that there is more that unites us than divides us. Along Came a Different just goes to show how much better we can all be when we come together to find common ground as friends. Every bookshelf should have a copy. In this story of hope and endurance, we follow a scientist and her team during their search for the elusive 'Giant Arctic Jellyfish'.

Galactic resonances call to mind not only Oliver Jeffers' star-catching protagonists, but also a hint of The Little Prince ( Guardian on UP, UP AND AWAY) A winner of a book about the power of drawing and storytelling ( Oliver Jeffers on THE STORYMACHINE) Bestselling author Alexandra Christo, author of TikTok sensation To Kill a Kingdom, introduces her new book, The Night Hunt (Hot Key Books), a dark...

Teaching Resources

But one day, along comes a different colour who likes Reds, Yellows and Blues, and suddenly everything starts to change. Along Came a Different is a one-of-a-kind visually appealing picture book by an established children’s book author and illustrator Tom McLaughlin which focuses on teaching the concepts of differences, social acceptance, and friendships to young children. A timely modern-day classic that welcomes differences and embraces change.

The simplicity of this text, the subtle messages on friendship and celebrating differences was enough to convince me to endorse Along Came A Different. Add this one to your family library or teaching shelf if you are searching for a picture book that embraces difference, in a fun format. Reds love being red. Yellows love being yellow. And Blues love being blue. The problem is that they just don't like each other.

When Along Came A Different opens, we learn that the red shapes adore being red. They love nothing more than to show off their red hats, share red songs and eat as many red apples as they can. Life is happy until something different enters their world, a yellow shape! And then long behold another very different colour makes their presence known, the blues. Eventually chaos erupts and upsets the equilibrium. Things begin to get silly, really silly and before long a set of rules are drawn up by the colours. This seems to work, but for only a little while until yet another different colour arrives on the scene, followed by another colour and a rainbow. Eventually, all the colours begin to realise that rules can be forgotten and it’s about enjoying yourself. The final message that is left with the reader is that being different is ‘the best thing ever’! The Nottinghill Carnival takes central stage in this story about families, memories and the power of dance and festivals. Author Yaba Badoe tells... There are plenty of teachable moments to be drawn from Along Came A Different. As an educator in an early childhood setting, I could envisage using this text to highlight concepts of same & different, rules, friendship, colour and shape. These ideas are all wrapped up in a format that is accessible for the readership it is intended for, those in the young reader category, aged 5 and under.