A Hug So Tight

A Hug So Tight tells the tale of Lenny, a naughty Loris who causes mayhem in his forest home with all his tricks and mischief.

None of the animals are safe from his mischief as he plots and plans to terrorise those he shares the forest with… until one day, he picks on the wrong person.

The story was inspired by Holly Melville-Bell’s cousin who has Down syndrome and uses simple sign language hidden in the illustrations to teach people how to communicate in a non-verbal way. The signed word is underlined in the text and readers can search the illustration to find the matching sign.

At the back is a glossary of the signs with instructions on the movement and direction.

Written in a rhyming style, the text is descriptive, funny and exciting. There are plenty of opportunities to increase vocabulary and the author uses a variety of language features and sentence styles to make it fun to read aloud.

The illustrations are effective, bright and colourful and capture the animal’s expressions perfectly.

A Hug So Tight was created with the support of Deaf Aotearoa and is the first in series of learning resources to bridge the gap between verbal and non-verbal language.