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LLOYD LLAMA by Sarah Jones

LLOYD LLAMA

by Sarah Jones ; illustrated by Sarah Jones

Pub Date: June 2nd, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-936669-32-5
Publisher: blue manatee press

A pink llama and a blue alpaca find common ground in this orthographically themed friendship story.

Just as Lloyd Llama loves everything with a double “l,” from “lollipops” to “cello,” Al Alpaca grooves on “apples, art, air guitar” and anything else that starts with “a.” Initially contentious, their relationship undergoes a transformation when they discover with a pair of sneezes that they both have “allergies”…and go on to discover a mutual fondness for “alligator shoes,” baking “allspice cakes,” and biking down “alleyways.” This tale of togetherness, though as fuzzy as the matted pelts of its principals, is marred by inconsistencies. Drawn with rumpled anthropomorphism in Jones’ palely colored cartoon illustrations, Lloyd and Al look young and energetic in some scenes but in others, more like a baggy-eyed old couple. Moreover, the narrative starts off in prose but then breaks into labored rhyme: “When choosing between action or thriller, they simply could not agree. / While Al enjoyed toast with apricot jam, Lloyd preferred grape jelly.” The “ll”s and initial “a”s are printed in pink and blue respectively, though some “a”s go unremarked. Jones adds lots of additional examples of the favored letters in background signs and other details.

Rough around the edges, but readers still llearning their lletters will enjoy the elementary wordplay promoted by these pastel pals.

(Picture book. 3-5)