Reggie and Lu who ‘are best friends most of the time’ are not happy with each other ‘today’.  So they do what many friends, who have had a falling out do – they hang around each other finding ways of demonstrating just how much they don’t like each other – until their anger passes.  Then, when they’ve swallowed their pride, and had a good laugh at themselves they take on the world instead of each other. 

Reggie and Lu’s predicament is a situation to which many pre-school and early years children (and their care-givers) will relate.  Quay (shortlisted for Bear and Chook in the CBCA 2004 awards) has chosen to tell the story in the present tense which gives the story a refreshingly immediate voice.  Readers will enjoy being privy to a mini saga of one-upmanship unfolding in front of them. 

The book is stylishly designed by Monkeyfish so that Quay’s gentle yet evocative renderings of Reggie and Lu stand out boldly and sparsely against the stark white backgrounds.  And Quay’s use of chalk pastels and black Lumograph pencil perfectly capture the texture of piggy skin and work well set against the large and slightly playful type. 

I do wish that Quay had built the tension more by cranking up the threats a notch at each opening.  The strongest and most convincing threats seem to come early in the story. And at the risk of sounding too precious, I was conscious that some of the stances Reggie and Lu take do contribute to gender stereotypes, such as Reggie selling Lu party shoes that ‘make rude noises’ when she walks or Reggie being dolled up with ‘tight pink curls … smelly hairspray and a floppy yellow bow’, rather than breaking away from these ‘boy-germ/girl-germ’ inferences. 

Pushing the envelope on these things would have given the story a bit more grunt (no pun intended).

Review by Sarah Mayor Cox

© 2004 Sarah Mayor Cox