Kevin Hawkes

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. There's various art styles throughout that I found engaging, but I most enjoyed that even with a predictable ending- the story was told in such a way that I didn't mind. There's a surprisingly large amount of words on each page to truly flesh out the story but is balanced nicely with the artwork that covers each page. When I first opened the book and began reading, I truly had no idea where the story was going and that's what really sold this book for me. Once the story picked up, I could predict the ending but I feel that's more a result of age than the plot being flat- children would easily fall into the dramatics brought forward. This story features Lulu, the orphaned dog of a portraiture painter as she crosses paths with Remy, the nomadic starving artist. Remy paints the 'essence' instead of the person- usually resulting in a colorful abstraction of what was seen. Whereas Lulu knows how to do portraiture painting like her previous owner, leaving us to follow her and Remy's artistic journeys contrasting their friendship. Flipping from page 7 where Lulu is painting, to page 8, faced with a hyperrealistic portrait was a moment that I genuinely laughed at. The big idea of this book appears to be the power of friendship as well as a 'beauty in the eye of the beholder' trope. When Remy gives up on painting upon feeling undervalued, Lulu is there through it all to remind him to return to his abstract artistic origins- and he finally sees the beauty in it [painting] again.… (mais)