Ladybug Girl

Oh, how we love Ladybug Girl.  She is brave, but not fearless, and she's girly, but she's no princess.  My Buddy could relate to her from the moment she saw the cover of the book.  

Lulu, the heroine of the book, is bored.  Her parents have some work to do around the house, her brother is off playing baseball with his friends, and Lulu has to entertain herself with only her dog, Bingo, for company.  The book tells the story of how she goes from "nothing to do" to having a spectacular adventure in her own backyard.

I like pretty much everything about this book.  The illustrations are great, especially the sense of movement and scale.  The font is cool.  The relationship between the brother and sister is realistic.  I even like that at the end, Lulu squints her eyes and "squeezes" her brother and his friends between her thumb and forefinger.  "'I'm not little,' she says.  'You're little.'"  Awesome.

This probably isn't news to anyone, but strong, independent female characters in books are not as easy to find as they should be, even in kids' books.  There is an awesome web site that has some great book and movie suggestions for girls of all ages and we've found a lot of new inspiration there, but still I'm always pleased to see a cool book about a little girl who doesn't need to be a pink frilly princess.  I'm talking to you, Pinkalicious.  When we went to a superhero birthday party for a friend of ours and my Buddy wanted to go as Ladybug Girl, I knew we had a winner on our hands.  I'm all about a book that makes a little girl feel like a superhero.