Now Lulu is back, a bit older, but even though she's tried to eat what's healthy she also gobbled a bunch of fluorescent gummy worms and now has a tummy ache. Since her earlier dream ended with a sneeze, she sneezes backwards ("Choo-Ah!") and she's back in dreamland where she meets her pal, Emily Enzyme. Her adventures play out in graphic novel format, for kids eight and above, courtesy of Chicoan Jan Condon and friends.
"Lulu! How Do You?" ($9.95 in paperback, self-published), is conceived and written by Janice Maximov Condon (janmaxcon.com), illustrated by Steve Ferchaud, with character design and production by Chris Ficken. The emphasis is on learning about gut microbes--and being kind to them.
In Lulu's dream, all talk is in rhyme, not just some of the time. She meets Louie Liver, the "deliverer": "Those worms you ate at the end of your meal ... are not real food ... and not a good deal.... When you eat toxins what a risk it poses. It could make you ill from your head to your toeses."
Pammy Pancreas chimes in as do the Kidney brothers, Lefty and Righty ("we make your urine daily and nightly"). Ferchaud's colorful drawings show how everyone really likes what they're doing so long as they don't have to fight against the bad stuff, primarily sugary things, as Abby Acidophilus says ("If you eat lots of sweets, bad microbes attack us. They ruin our hula! They really do whack us").
What's good to eat? Fibrous veggies and fermented foods (yogurt, sauerkraut).
Condon writes in an author's note that she joined a Chico group following the nutrition principles of the Weston A. Price Foundation (westonaprice.org) "which changed the direction of my life." An occupational therapist, Condon has a "passion to share my knowledge of gut microbes and healthy food choices."
Right eating is, well, nothing to sneeze at.
