The Big Lovo
A feast-day island story for little ones. The whole bay digs the pit, heats the stones and cooks a lovo together, and then one cheeky hen goes missing. A rhyming read-aloud for ages 2 to 7.
About this one
Your child knows what a birthday party looks like. Here is what a feast day looks like where we come from.
When the big days come round, Christmas, New Year, a birthday, Bubu does not reach for a cake tin. She reaches for a shovel. A lovo today! said Bubu. For you!
A lovo is a feast cooked under the ground, where hot stones bake with hardly a sound. So the whole day goes into it. Samy stacks the wood, Bela rolls the stones, the pit gets dug and the fire gets lit, and the stones turn red, then orange-bright. Fish and dalo, yam and greens go down wrapped in banana leaves, while Chicky watches the steam and wonders, seriously, whether she is next. Then leaves, sacks and sand on top, patted flat with small hands, and the long wait that every child in the world is bad at. Good things wait, yes, even you two.
By evening the sand comes off, the steam goes up, and the whole bay sits down on the mats to eat.
And then Bela counts. One, two, three. Where is Chicky?
For any child who has helped with something big and then been told to wait for it, this is that whole feeling in one book. And for a Pacific child, it is their own feast day on the page, their own grandmother running it.
Can you find Chicky hiding on every page?
• Rhyming read-aloud for ages 2 to 7
• A hidden Chicky to find on every page
• Everyday Fijian woven through: lovo, dalo, yam, banana leaf
• Ends on the question that opens book 4, Where's Chicky?
• Book 3 in the Samy & Bela series