I did enjoy this book but having read it I can see that it would not be to everyone's taste.
I loved the stories and the character of Bruno was fab. It was a little oddly laid out but other than that really enjoyed it

This was kind of silly fun! Nor much really happens in the story, but it's quirky enough that some kids is going to find it a joy! Illustrations are fun!

'Bruno: Some of the More Interesting Days in My Life So Far' by Catharina Valckx with illustrations by Nicolas Hubesch is a series of short stories about days in the life of a smart aleck cat named Bruno who wears a checkered cap.

The chapters are named after days, like A Peculiar Day, or A Stupid Day or An Almost Perfect Day. In one story Bruno meets a fish named Bup who is flying in the air. He follows the fish to see where he will go. In another story, it's a rainy day, so Bruno has unexpected guests. The final story was my favorite. Bruno imagines his perfect day, which includes finding a treasure to give to a poor family and having ice cream with his friends. Then he comes very close to having it.

The illustrations are detailed and very fun. The animal characters have unique styles. I like Bruno's older friend Ringo who wears glasses and a yellow necktie. There's a wolf character named Dreadful Gerard who shows up in one story, and he is rude, but his name still made me laugh. This might be a bit long to read all in one sitting, but the stories are whimsical and fun.

I received a review copy of this ebook from Gecko Press, Myrick Marketing & Media,LLC, and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this ebook.

I really wanted to like this one but I never really connected with the characters or any of the issues they were working to resolve. I thought the voices of the characters were a bit more strident than I like to read (my little kids would be offended by the word "stupid")..

Bruno is the story of a cat in a checkered cap whose personality includes flexibility no matter the unexpected change in the day. When it's raining outside, he sets up a picnic indoors. And the friends he makes along the way include a fish swimming in the air and a canary that can only speak gibberish. In each case, Bruno is more than willing to help out.

This book is a great starter book for those transitioning from picture books to chapter books. What do I mean? Illustrations cover page after page, with a few sentences to read. It isn't overwhelming to a young reader as a chapter book might be. For my daughter, she did well with reading the story, but quickly lost interest. I'm not entirely sure why. It might be perhaps because the character is simply going about day by day, but there isn't a huge story involved. It's really about following a cat that is so laid back he's able to handle any setbacks or changes along the way. It's actually a great attitude to have.

I would have given the book 5 stars, except that it didn't hold the attention of a 7-year-old. She typically reads Princess in Black, Geronimo Stilton, Owl Diaries, Pete the Cat, Splat the Cat, Dog Man, and The Land of Fake Believe (to give an idea of where her tastes lie). But despite her lack of interest, I thought it was a cute book with a positive theme and fun illustrations.

Translated from the French, a picture book collection of short stories about the different kinds of days Bruno, a Parisian cat, has. He tells about a peculiar day when everything was strange, a very rainy day and its events, the quiet of a day when the power went out, a stupid day that has a lot of things that went badly and a few things that went well, a day so typical it’s almost boring, and Bruno’s ideas for a perfect day that go <i>mostly</i> according to plan.

Different types of days are things everyone can relate to, but oddly enough, I can’t remember another story collection that focused on this topic. It works quite well. Most people can relate to rainy day adventures or those days when nothing seems to go right, or the adventure it is to go without electricity when you know it’s just for a little while. Maybe your bad day didn’t involve almost getting run over by a car full of boar, but you can still relate. I think what I liked most about this book are the friendships. Bruno and his friends are good to each other, have amusing adventures, and even show a variety in their ages. (One of his best friends is an elderly pony.) Bruno and his other animal friends are residents of real Paris (not the touristy Paris) so it also has a teensy bit of exotic feel to it for those of us outside of Paris, but the location doesn’t distract from the everyday feel of their adventures. You can definitely get kids to make connections between Bruno’s days and days they have experienced themselves. In that way, this would make a good read before a creative writing activity. Can they write about one of their days too? If Bruno can write about sitting in the dark or a typical day, is there any such thing as a day too boring to turn into a story? It’s a charming picture book kids should enjoy for the cartoon-like illustrations and the clever twist on the ordinary. Will recommend our elementary library acquire a copy.

Bruno is an English translation of a 2015 French title by Catharina Valckx. The episodic tale is divided into small "chapters", each following a different day in the life of Bruno (a cat) and his friends. The illustrations are very nice; a steady palette and fun line-work make the pictures fun and enticing. The translation, however, hamstrings the production. There is a certain heavy-handedness to the narrative that probably doesn't exist in the original. Some readers may enjoy the abruptness of the sentences, but in a picture-book format it feels a little out of place. This will be right for some grade-school readers, but probably not most.

The illustrations have some appeal but the stories are a bit on the odd side. Might be interesting to examine in a group setting.

I received this ARC from Netgalley for an honest review.

This book is a bit odd, yet enjoyable at the same time. A story of a cat and the great and not so great things that happen to him. The illustrations are great and help carry the odd stories. There's a bit lost in translation and it is quite long for a picture book.

Meet Bruno. No, not that Bruno – for pity's sake, this is a book for the under-eights and not a character from teen comedy movies. No, Bruno is a quite unmistakeable cat, in a bright blue cloth cap, and this is a book regarding various days in his life that he thinks are of note – whether they're the day the power goes out, or a day that would be completely uninteresting were it not for a joke from his best friend. But don't you dare make the mistake of thinking this sounds mundane – here is a background couple, of a hippo and a crocodile, just walking past the heroes. Here is said best friend, an elderly pony, forced somehow to walk backwards. Here is when Bruno is playing host to a turtle dove addicted to jam, who is forced to hide when a wet wolf gate-crashes. I think you'll agree that any day spent reading this book will not be a boring one.

I also think it patently obvious, even to the youngest of readers, that this is a bonkers book. Many chapters are a sensible length, one is just a double-paged spread. The friendships and characters therein break all known extremes as regards anthropomorphism. And by being so eagerly peculiar right from the off, with a flying fish, the backwards walk for the pony, and more, the sense of the bizarre is right to the fore. And that's before the canary comes in with his garbled English.

It's at this point in proceedings that I have to say I don't generally like the absurdly weird. But it's at this point in proceedings when I say I really did like this. It's not absurdity for absurdity's sake, but a friendly take on the unusual. It could be a heavily-disguised message about taking whatever the world throws at you, and living each day as it comes, and accepting any and every kind of friend… But way above all that it's just a joyfully silly read.

There's not much reading going on here. It's certainly not a picture book, but we get at most one large paragraph-ful of script to each page, either at the bottom or top, or perhaps providing captions below two images. The artwork is of an easy, hand-drawn kind, with a welcome style, vivid colouring, and nothing like a fully straight line anywhere. So while the read is a little slight, I'm sure the pages will appeal enough to demand re-reading, meaning that any day can be an interesting one.

A little bit strange, but I can see kids enjoying it because of the strangeness. In format, it's somewhere between a picture book and a graphic novel; it would work well for kids transitioning into reading on their own.

This is a sweet, longish picture book about a anthropomorphic cat, and his friends. The whole book is a series of stories of good days, bad days, and all sorts of days in between. There are stories of fish out of water, and lost canaries. There is just a two page story of how peaceful it is when the power goes out. There is a strange story about a rainy day, when a wolf comes to call.

I think kids will enjoy reading about Bruno's strange adventures, and friends. And the wolf story ends well.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

Perceptive, Funny, Irreverent and a Touch Surreal

To say that a book has "charm" is often a way either to damn it with faint praise or to say something nice without really saying much at all. Because I so admired this book I'll try harder to be clear. This book combines pleasant and appealing drawings of amiable and idiosyncratic characters with crystal clear, sharp, deadpan wit. It's smart, casually odd, and offered with a smile, a shrug of the shoulders, and a raised eyebrow.

The first of the six interconnected stories is titled "A Peculiar Day", and peculiar, in a good way, is exactly the right description for the entire book. It's a touch surreal and a bit bizarro, but just around the edges. In my favorite story, (the first one), Bruno runs into a fish who has somehow left the water and found himself swimming in the air. (When questioned, the fish merely sighs and responds, "I can't understand it. Something very strange is going on...") It's as though the Belgian artist Rene Magritte had decided to abandon the canvas in order to write children's books.

Bruno reminds me a bit of the unflappable heroes you encounter in books by writers like Daniel Pinkwater. Whether it's a lizard jazz band, a giant Hoboken chicken, or a hamburger diner operated by aliens, his kids just roll with the dada punches and keep on keepin' on, with a slight nod to the oddness surrounding them. Those are books, though, for older readers, and maybe one of the most appealing aspects of this book is that it is, after all, a picture book for little guys. I'm thinking that if your little reader/listener gets into this book, then you are on your way to having parented the hippest kid in the first grade.

Catharina Valckx is Dutch, raised in Paris but now living in Amsterdam. She writes in Dutch and French. The illustrator, Nicolas Hubesch, is also based in Paris. So, it seems fair to make a reference to Gallic humor - that peculiar combination of gaiety, keen perception, irreverence and joy - as a fine way to describe the effect of this work. That the book so crisply gets its surreal feel across is no doubt also due to the fine translation by Antony Shugar, who never gets mentioned in the blurbs.

Anyway, bottom line, I was very taken by this book, and very much entertained. It's smart; it's funny; it is - come on let's say it - charming. A very nice find.

(Please note that I received a free advance will-self-destruct-in-x-days Adobe Digital copy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)