Little Lulu: The Little Girl Who Could Talk to Trees

Forget trying to break into the boys club, Lulu Moppet would rather tear it down! In this volume of Drawn & Quarterly’s landmark reprints of Marge’s Little Lulu, our heroine plays pranks on her male counterparts, beating them at their own game and having a lot more fun because of it.

Many of the strips in Little Lulu: The Little Girl Who Could Talk to Trees are farcical retellings of classic nursery rhymes and fairy tales—stories Lulu is telling Alvin, the boy she babysits. Only, when Lulu’s running the show, she casts herself as the main character, much to Alvin’s dismay! And rather than barreling straight toward a simple moralistic ending about the importance of sharing or kindness, her yarns veer sideways for a rollicking punch line every time.

Lulu also ventures into the supernatural—encouraging a ghost who isn’t bold enough to scare those around him, flying above her neighbourhood on a magic rocking horse, and entering a haunted house alone, covered in a white sheet, when Tubby and the rest of the boys say she can’t come with them because she’s a girl.

This is the third in Drawn & Quarterly’s best-of reprintings of one of the greatest comics of all time, penned by John Stanley. Younger readers will appreciate the audacity of these kids's pranks, while Stanley’s hilariously true-to-life portrayals of wacky children make these comics extra funny for older readers.