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Lulu in Honolulu
by Elisabeth Wolf
c.2014, Sourcebooks
$6.99 / $8.50 Canada
280 pages
By Terri Schlichenmeyer
The Truth Contributor
Your parents are lucky to have you around.
They rely on you to do so much: you keep your room clean,
you can cook super-easy meals, and you’re very good at
keeping your little brother quiet.
You help your parents quite a lot…or, at least you try. But
in the new book Lulu in Honolulu by Elisabeth
Wolf, Lulu Harrison’s parents really wish they’d left
her in L.A.!
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It was supposed to be the family vacation of a lifetime,
with a little work on the side: beautiful Fiona Harrison was
directing a new film on location in Honolulu, and her
handsome husband, Linc, was the lead actor. They brought
along 16-year-old, bikini-obsessed Alexis, who’d been a
model once; and 11-year-old Lulu, who had frizzy hair,
freckles,and a total inability to hula.
That’s not good, when you’re spending the summer in Hawaii.
But it was okay. Lulu, “the world’s most freckled fish out
of water,” was perfectly happy to wear SPF-50 clothing,
dorky shoes, and thick sunscreen while she attended Ohana
Day Camp. The Camp was where she met her best friend,
Noelani, who was the finest hula dancer Lulu had ever seen,
but who seriously lacked koa (bravery).
And that was okay, too, because Lulu had enough koa
for them both. Take, for instance, when Ohana Day Camp was
competing in the hula-off. Lulu knew that her famous family
could boost the chances of a team win – if only they would
attend the competition. What happened went viral online.
If that was the only thing that happened to Lulu, it
still would’ve been an awesome summer – but, of course, it
wasn’t. Both her parents were overworked and the film was
over budget, which meant that they didn’t have any free
time. Lulu tried to help with a few schemes that seemed like
great ideas, but she just made things worse every single
time. Then Fiona got fired, and she threatened to send Lulu
back to Los Angeles. Alexis was mad, too. Was there any way
to get her ohana (family) to forgive her?
I struggled for the better part of an evening to read
Lulu in Honolulu, and I wasn’t sure why. The story’s
basically good; young girls will get a kick out of Lulu’s
well-meaning personality and her adventures were fun.
Finally, I realized what I really didn’t like about this
book.
First, its formatting makes it seem slow. Author Elisabeth
Wolf presents this tale as though it were a movie script,
which means it’s filled with directions and asides that
don’t play well. Kids might like the hook for awhile, but I
didn’t.
I also greatly disliked Lulu’s too-busy-for-her,
rich-and-famous, gorgeous-and-they-know-it parents. On the
first page, this 11-year-old character compared
herself to them, and came up woefully short. That made me
sad.
Overall, I’m always a big Know Your Audience advocate, and
that goes doubly for this book. It’s not totally horrid.
It’s worth a try, but remember this: your
eight-to-10-year-old might love Lulu in Honolulu, or
she might not even want it around. |
