Lulu's is a lot like Pita's. You learn the most about Kenya from the section in the back, not from the story, and what you do learn in the story is mostly bad, because, again like with Pita's book, it's the giant divide between the wealthy and the poor and between different groups.
Lulu's book also has troublesome parents. Her mother runs a kids' TV show and sucks up to the rich station owner to the point of compromising her daughter's integrity. Her father doesn't stick up for Lulu, even though he knows she's right. Neither parent seriously corrects their younger son when he's being blatantly prejudiced. Apparently, Kenya's got a lot of different groups in it and each one has a certain stereotype. Yeah, maybe that's something you should address properly in a children's book by having the characters who act prejudiced be clearly in the wrong? But no.
Same thing as with Pita's book. Her mother never gets over herself. Lulu's asshole little brother never gets any sort of comeuppance for being a prejudiced douche. He had a bet with Lulu over the guilt or innocence of the man she spends the entire book defending and they didn't take even one sentence to have her gleefully tell him she won the bet or have him admit that he was wrong. Perfect opportunity for him to learn a lesson about stereotyping, but nope. The author just let it slide.
Lulu's book also had a Ling-like level of danger going on that made it feel less believable.
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| Not her stock outfit! |
Lulu is still a very likeable character despite all the nonsense going on in her book. I liked the basic plotline. They just took the danger element a bit too far. And I really wish, like with Pita's, that they'd spent more time in positive cultural things and showing that people with prejudices are severely in the wrong. If they could take the time to spend several pages revealing that the jerky rich son of the jerky rich station owner was actually not that bad a kid, then they could have slipped another lesson in there, too.
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