Lucy by Randy Cecil (review)

In this illustrated story told in four acts, Lucy is a small white stray dog who roams the town with a fixed routine and who dreams of the days when she was somebody’s beloved pet. Young Eleanor Wische feeds Lucy by dangling treats on a string out the window, and she’d like to adopt Lucy. Meanwhile, Eleanor’s father works hard at the grocery store while longing to making his juggling talent into a vaudeville career, but whenever he goes onstage and sees the audience, his skills fail him. There’s an early cinema flavor to this period charmer that eventually grants the wishes of the Wisches (and their new dog); each page could almost be a captioned silent movie scene as the tightly structured and neatly intertwined plot unfurls. The art, a series of circular monochromatic vignettes, employs Cecil’s familiar softly drawn colored pencil and narrow-limbed humans; Lucy (apparently modeled on the author’s own pup) is, like the humans, minimally drawn and seen at a middle distance, so the visual emphasis is on her perky exploits rather than any heart-tugging facial expressions. The carefully repetitive text will also make this an engaging readaloud, but be sure to keep your audience close to see the show unfold in the art.