Little Lulu Vol. 7: Lulu’s Umbrella Service – by John Stanley & Irving Tripp
Volume: #7 of #18 | 230 pages | Dark Horse
Rating: *****
Summary: More Little Lulu! Interestingly enough, the story referenced in this 
volume’s cover –Lulu’s Umbrella Service– was printed in the volume I reviewed prior to this one, which was volume #6, Little Lulu: Letters To Santa.
This volume has a good number of “silent” one-page or half-page stories; 12 total, along with 23 regular stories, the majority of which are well-drawn and a lot of fun to read. Some of the better ones include “Great Day”, “Friends And Enemies”, “Rainy Day” and “Gilbert The Gorilla.” “Great Day” and “Friends And Enemies” were particularly charming, while “Rainy Day” is one of the most hilarious, well-thought-out Little Lulu stories I’ve read so far.
Recommended to fans of: Classic comics in general. Old Disney comics, Harvey comics such as Casper, Little Audrey, Richie Rich, Hot Stuff, Little Dot, Little Lotta, etc.
Favorite story: “Rainy Day”, in which Lulu and Tubby want to meet up to play, but neither one of them wants to go over to the other one’s house under the rain. They both pretend to have colds over the phone –talking with “stuffy” noses and sniffling– but neither one will believe the other, and so they both hang up. However, thinking that perhaps she really did have a cold, Tubby leaves for Lulu’s house. Meanwhile, Lulu thinks the same, and goes over to Tubby’s place. With the rain coming down so hard, they walk right past each other on the street without noticing –and that’s just the beginning. The rest is very funny and I won’t spoil it for you, so just buy this great little book and have fun reading it yourself!
What I liked best: A lot of my favorite Little Lulu stories are in this book. They are more charming and innocent than most. I also love the cover, and Gilbert the gorilla’s blunt, expressive and unchanging “G-runt!”
What I liked the least: “The Date”. It felt like a story done in a hurry –because it happened inside a movie theather, most panels were black squares with nothing but dialog balloons and eyes in them! I didn’t like “The Old Master” all that much either.
Verdict: Another one of my favorite volumes. I always say this about Little Lulu, but just in case you don’t know it: this is a classic, a priceless reprint that your kids deserve a chance to read! I definitely recommend buying it while it is available!
See this book on LibraryThing.
Please click on the link below to see a summary of every story in this volume (23 total.)
1. Junior Detective Tubby (Lulu is horrified when she finds “Lulu loves Tubby” written in black crayon all over town. So, she enlists Tubby’s help to find the culprit.)
2. The Picnic Pirates (Lulu is going on a girls-only picnic with her friends, but the boys are determinted not to be left out!)
3. Popular Girl (Tubby drops by Lulu’s house while Wilbur is paying Lulu a visit. Tubby becomes jealous, and soon both boys are fighting over a frazzled Lulu.)
4. Great Day (Tubby saves his money for a whole month so that he can eat at the Sunset Dinner, sitting right beside the truck drivers he idolizes.)
5. The Rock Candy Mine (Lulu tells Alvin a story about six sad little sisters who live in an orphanage, one of which decies to escape and ends up working at a rock candy mine.)
6. Untitled #1 (Tubby has to pay a penalty for not being four months behind with his club dues.)
7. Rainy Day (It’s raining, and Tubby and Lulu want to play with each other, but neither one of them wants to go to the other one’s house under the rain.)
8. The Little Girl Who Never Heard of Ghosts (Alvin locks Lulu in the closet to make her tell him a story, which turns out to be about a little girl raised by birds who, having never heard of ghosts, is not afraid of them when she goes into a haunted house.)
9. The Daredevil (Tubby bets the gang that he can get engaged to every girl in the neighborhood in one hour.)
10. The Old Master (Tubby finds a framed painting on the street and takes it to the clubhouse to use as a dart board, unaware that it’s a masterpiece worth fifty thousand dollars.)
11. The Dragon Tamer (Lulu tells Alvin a story about a little girl whose parents were carried off by a dragon when she was a baby.)
12. The Fuzzythingus Poopi (Lulu finds what a scientist believes to be the rarest flower in existance, but she wants to give it to her mother instead of selling it to him.)
13. At The Beach (Lulu takes Alvin to the beach, and when she leaves him alone to go get him a glass of water, Alvin causes trouble for the people at the beach.)
14. The Savage Seven (When Tubby receives a letter from Willy Wilkins officially bouncing him out of the club for not paying his dues, he fools the gang into thinking that a group called “The Savage Seven” will come to break the clubhouse and beat them all up, so that he can save the day and get back in the club.)
15. The Date (Lulu goes to the movies with Tubby.)
16. Piggy Bank Blues (Worried about a number of recent robberies in her neighborhood, Lulu decides to bury her piggybank, but ends up losing the map that marks the spot where she buried it.)
17. Friends And Enemies (Lulu goes around the neighborhood inviting all her friends to her birthday party. But to her sad surprise, only her enemies, such as Gloria, Wilbur and Johnny Puddle are willing to come.)
18. The Guard (It’s Tubby’s turn to spend the whole night out guarding the clubhouse.)
19. Gilbert The Gorilla (Lulu befriends a mean gorilla at the zoo, which later escapes its cage during the night and sniffs its way to Lulu’s bedroom.)
20. The Case Of The Missing Vanishing Cream (When Lulu gets punished for taking her mother’s vanishing cream –which she didn’t– Tubby sets out to prove that the real culprit is, as usual, Lulu’s father.)
21. Evangeline (Lulu loses her memory when a baby hits her over the head with his bottle.)
22. The Magic Flute (Lulu tells Alvin a story about a magic flute that could make people dance when they heard it play.)
23. The Good Deed (When Tubby reads about an old lady that left a million dollars in her will to a little boy who did her a good deed, he is determined to find himself a rich old lady to do a good deed for.)
These are all the stories in this volume.
-Marina
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[...] Marina Neira reviews yet another classic from Dark Horse, Little Lulu vol. 7: Lulu’s Umbrella Service. [...]