Bruno & Lulu’s Playground Adventures by Patricia Lakin (review)

In “The Cake,” the first of two stories about squirrel buddies Bruno and Lulu, the friends ask a group of crabby cats at the park if the kitties will share their cupcakes. The cats refuse, so Lulu, who loves pretend play, makes a “cake” from sand: “Help me mix.” Bruno, however, is a realist: “We cannot eat this.” Lulu, still pretending, replies, “I know. It is not ready,” to which Bruno dryly responds, “𠈖 even when it is ready.” An enthusiastic tossing of some pebbles inadvertently sends the cats scattering, and Bruno and Lulu happily (if unethically) eat the left-behind cupcakes. In “Time-Out,” Lulu is stuck in time-out on a park bench and can’t play. Bruno joins her to wait it out, and the two pretend that the bench is a swing and a slide before seguing into a game of “Guess What I Am,” at which point Bruno tires of pretend play and asks Lulu’s mom for release. She assents, and guess where Lulu wants to play? The bench. Brief sentences, simple vocabulary, and repetition of words and phrases (in a text that appears entirely in dialogue) lend support to kids ready for something a bit longer than Willems’ Elephant and Piggie series; Lulu’s and Bruno’s dialogue bubbles also alternate colors, helping readers easily distinguish who is speaking. Lakin writes skillfully for this audience, injecting humor and clever teachable moments (“‘How do you like that?’” “‘Not one bit.’” “‘Not one bite, either’”) into her accessible text. Edmunds’ plentiful digitally created art is cartoonishly fun, if occasionally a bit busy, and orangey Bruno, sporting blue spectacles, and tan Lulu, with her polka-dot hair bow, are a lively pair. Besides its obvious use as a first-class beginning reader, this might also make an entertaining readers theater performance piece.