Lucy & Company

Author & Illustrator: Marianne Dubuc
Kids Can Press Ltd. (2016)

Lucy & Company by Marianne Dubuc has three parts to it; The Snack, The Treasure, and The Hatchlings. The main characters are Lucy, Marcel the mouse, Henry the rabbit, Dot the turtle, Adrian the snail and Anton the bear. The first part of the book, The Snack is about Lucy having a snack with Marcel the mouse. She shares her strawberry biscuits with him and then Henry the rabbit comes along with hazelnuts. Lucy again shares her biscuits with him and then along comes Dot the turtle and his snack had dropped in the pond as he was walking over it. As Henry is sharing his hazelnuts with everyone, one screams "NOOOO! Don't eat me!" to find out it's not a hazelnut instead its Adrian the snail (Dubuc 12). He becomes one of Lucy's friends and now Marcel is the only one with a snack left so he shares it with all of his friends. The next section of the book is The Treasure; it is about the five friends reading a map and trying to find the big red X that has treasure. As the friends are walking along they come across Anton the bear. They think he is the rock they're looking for but once they realize that they just disturbed the big bear they continue walking before he gets any angrier. After crossing the bridge they find the actual rock they were looking for and rabbit starts to dig. Rabbit digs up a present that had decorations and a cake in it for his birthday. The last part of the book is The Hatchlings; it is about the Adrian the snail finding three eggs. When the Adrian and Lucy try to brood the eggs, they began to hatch and three little baby birds came out. They had thought Adrian was their mother and Adrian had no idea what to do, he didn't know that he had to keep them warm. Once the birds started to sneeze they took them to Anton and he kept them warm. Many criteria are used in Lucy & Company; these include text, questions, pictures, drawing, and style.


Text is the first criterion used. The text used in Lucy & Company is short and simple. On each page of the book there are only two to three sentences. On some of the pages don't have any words at all just pictures. The words on the page are easy for a younger audience to understand. Most of them are words we use on a daily basis. I think the text used in the book is good for a younger audience because it's short and won't lose the audience's attention. The next criterion used is questions. 

The next criterion used is questions. Questions can be used in Lucy & Company because in the first part of the book, The Snack many questions can be asked. Once the friends realized that the hazelnut wasn't a hazelnut, Marcel asked "What are you" That's when they found out it was a snail (Dubuc 13). Questions can be asked throughout the entire book and it helps keep the younger audience attention. Some questions that could be asked are "What kind of food did the five friends share?" "What animal might this be?" "What do you think they'll dig up?" "What do you think is in the eggs?" The list of questions can go on and the younger audience can get all the answers from all of the pictures. I would ask questions in this book because it's not very long and the answers are easy to find. The next criterion used is pictures. 

The next criterion used is pictures. There are many visual elements used in pictures and the elements that Lucy & Company includes are line, shape, texture, and color. Lines are either curved or straight in picture books. In this book, the lines that are used are straight because the trees and the grass in each picture they have lines that are all straight. The shape of the pictures is curved because the Lucy and the animals in the story have a curve to them. Angular is also used in the book especially in the picture when Lucy is holding the map and the playing card are on the ground. The map and playing cards are a rectangular shape whereas everything else is curved. The textures of the pictures are smooth and soft with the medium because they're drawn and colored with a pencil. The picture uses value, secondary, and they're cool. A value color such as light blue is used for the sky and pond. Whereas secondary colors such as green is used for the grass and tree leaves. Blue and green would be the cool colors used because they're light and not too bright and it gives the audience a cool feeling. By looking at the pictures you can tell what is going on in the story. I think the pictures in Lucy & Company are made for a younger audience because they could look at the pictures and tell what was going on in the story. The next criterion used is drawing. 

Another criterion used is drawing. The pictures in Lucy & Company are drawn and colored with a pencil because if you look very closely at the characters and their clothes you can see the lines from a pencil. When drawing with a pencil the audience can see the full range of lightness to darkness. Rabbit's ears the audience is able to see the color going from a white to a pinkish color. I think the drawings being drawn with a pencil fit well with the story because you can see every detail in each character and on the trees. The next criterion used is style.

The last criterion used is style. The style used in Lucy & Company is realistic because the characters look like real life humans and animals. They also fit the proportion of an actual person and animal, they fit the page. The younger audience can tell what they actually are and what they're supposed to be. The illustrator didn't draw them to look like cartoon characters but to look like actual characters. I think the style was perfect for this book because everything looked real and everything fit the proportion of the page. 

Lucy & Company was a great picture book to read. It's easy to read and it would catch the attention of a younger audience such as preschoolers or Kindergartners. By looking at the pictures, the audience could tell what was going on in the story. All of the criteria's were met, from text to style. Overall, this book is a great book to have in the classroom and I would recommend it to teachers and families. 

Review by Jennifer Wingard