LULU IS A RHINOCEROS

A little dog longs to unleash her true self.

Lulu may appear to be a tan-and-white bulldog, but she knows who she really is deep down. While on the outside she has “soft, fuzzy fur” and a “little nub” of a tail, inside she has “thick gray rhino skin” and a “tail that whips and twirls.” She also knows what she’s missing: a rhino’s horn. Lulu searches for a substitute on her walks through New York City. Could an ice cream cone do the trick? A sock? She happily settles for the next best thing: a banana peel! Or she would, until it’s stolen by a wayward pigeon. In her haste to retrieve it, Lulu enters Central Park and finds herself in an unexpected but perfect spot—the rhino enclosure at the Central Park Zoo. This mildly amusing story meanders from plot point to plot point, following a manic puggie dream girl whose commitment to being herself is commendable but less than compelling. In the final pages, Lulu meets Flom Flom, a tickbird who tells her that “every rhino has a tickbird, and every tickbird has a rhino”—a meet-cute that explains nothing. Without information on the symbiotic relationship between rhinos and tickbirds, many will be mystified. The illustrations try their best but leave Lulu in an uncanny valley between cartoony and realistic.

Sweet but unsatisfying.