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Lory Dory

Rhythm and an invisible character turn feeling excluded into a story about creative self-expression.

Suggested age: 4–6岁 · Reading level L2 · 12 illustrated pages

A little girl lies in bed. Her grandpa sits next to her.

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Rhythm and an invisible character turn feeling excluded into a story about creative self-expression.

Read all 12 story pages
A little girl lies in bed. Her grandpa sits next to her.
One night Grandpa was tucking me in.

His hands were soft and his hair was thin.
Grandpa talks to the girl.
‘I’m going to tell you a special story, about a girl named Lory Dory.’
There is an empty armchair. Two eyes peek out. This is Lory Dory.
You couldn’t see Lory Dory at all because she was born invisible.
The falling rain makes an outline of Lory Dory. There is an outline of Lory Dory underneath the blankets on a bed.
You’d only see Lory when rain hit her head, or when she was curled under blankets in bed.
Children are playing in the snow and pointing at the outline of Lory Dory made by the snow.
Lory was left out of all the kids’ games. They teased her and they called her names.

‘Look, it’s Lory. The Imaginary Friend! She’s not like us, she’s just pretend!’
A boy sits at his school desk. Lory Dory sits next to him and draws.
One day at school, a boy wanted to know:

‘How do you look? I only see you in snow.’
The boy hands Lory Dory a paint brush.
‘Can you paint yourself?’ Lory knew that she could.

But not in the same way the boy thought she would.
The picture is filled with paintings of cats and fruit and stars.
Lory painted her body with all that she loved from the world all around and the sky up above.
The paint makes footprints on the page.
She painted herself every day with such pride, to bring out the person who she was inside.
There is a painting of Lory Dory standing by the trees wearing a beautiful dress and smiling happily.
I know I’m invisible and hard to see.

So I painted these pictures to show the real me.’
Grandpa stands by the little girl's bed.
‘Are you making this up, Gramps? Is this story true?’

‘Lory is real – real as me, real as you.’
The little girl lies in bed alone. Coloured light twinkles through the open door.
When Grandpa had left me, I can’t quite be sure, but I think I saw Lory just outside my door.

Creators and open license

Created by
Sonia Dearling, Brendan O'Neill, Arthur Attwell

Source: Book Dash
Original: Lory Dory from Book Dash
License: CC BY 4.0

Original story text and illustrations unchanged. Website and printable layout prepared by Little Leaf; age, reading level and recommendation are editorial suggestions. Web and printable layout adapted by Little Leaf. Age and reading-level suggestions are editorial. Original stories and artwork belong to their credited creators. Website narration uses the selected synthetic Voice 7.