Spanish / Spain
Lilo
Garland, Inés
(text)
Mutuberria, Maite
(illus.)
[Zaragoza]: Edelvives, 2019. – 212 p.
(Series: Ala delta. Serie verde; 114)
ISBN 978-84-140-2356-3
Coping with grief | Envy | Cyberbullying | Dog
Reading age: 9+
White Ravens issue: 2020
If humans had as sensitive a nose as Lilo, eleven-year-old Emi’s short-legged sheepdog, they would have noticed long ago that something is not quite right with her. Sometimes Lilo can detect the aroma of yeast and old lemon in the air, which means that Emi is sad and scared. There’s also a mysterious girl, Kai, whose texts to Emi’s phone cause her to cry and get out of sorts. Lilo the excellent sniffer is the emotionally sensitive first-person narrator of this story. Looking at the world from his somewhat other perspective as an animal, readers learn how he, his dog friends and the shadowy cat Berenice find the source of Kai’s envy towards Emi. Given his motivation to make the humans around him happy, Lilo brings the two girls together. Perceptively and humorously, Argentinian author Inés Garland tells a story about handling rage and grief, in which the world of animals and that of human beings permeate one another in an unusual way. [JW]