Bruno & Lulu's Playground Adventures

K-Gr 3—This simple, pictorial chapter book might capture the interest of newly proficient or reluctant readers. It features two friends who banter and bop around in a park. Bruno the squirrel "loves to go, go, go" and Lulu the chipmunk likes to pretend. Two rather lengthy, dialogue-driven stories about the pair are delivered in a bubbly, color-coded text-box style, which mimics text messages. In "Cake," the characters outwit a group of mean cats and take their picnic cakes even though they don't belong to them. The question of right and wrong is not presumed or even addressed. A slightly disjointed story line continues in "Time-Out." Lulu is in time-out on a park bench and cannot remember why or how long she is supposed to stay there. As in the first chapter, again a resourceful male, Bruno, saves the day for the dreamy and ditsy Lulu when he rides away on his motorbike and comes back with the news that Lulu's time-out is over. "How do you know?" she wonders. "I asked," is Bruno's simple reply. Edmunds's digital cartoons are bright and energetic and provide plenty of sight clues to reinforce the action. However, a slick and modern package can't rescue the pedestrian storytelling.—Ellie Lease, Harford County Public Library, MD