The Characters of Maplewood Village: Meet the Whole Cast

Maplewood village has five main residents, each with their own story, their own struggle, and their own way of finding their place in the community. Here's who they are — and why we built them this way.

Lumi

The small lavender cat with a teal cape and a star wand. Brave, curious, and consistently the first one to notice when someone needs help. Gender neutral by design, so every child who reads these books can decide for themselves who Lumi is.

The core of Lumi's character is deceptively simple: Lumi pays attention. In a world where it's easy to walk past someone who needs help, Lumi turns toward them. That's the whole heroism.

[Meet Lumi in Chapter 1](/stories/lumi-and-the-magical-wand)

Bruno

A small brown bear who is Lumi's first and closest friend. Shy, self-doubting, warm-hearted to the core.

Bruno's story is about the gap between who you want to be and who fear lets you be. He wants to be brave. He freezes. He tries again. He gets a little closer each time.

We built Bruno for every child who has ever wanted to try something and couldn't quite make themselves do it. Which is every child, at some point. Bruno's arc across the books is one of the most emotionally resonant parts of the whole series, because his struggles are universal and his progress is earned slowly enough to feel real.

[Read Bruno's waterfall story](/stories/lumi-and-the-roaring-waterfall)

Max

A cow with a beautiful singing voice and a complicated relationship with praise and criticism. Max appears confident — always in the center of things, always with something to say. The confidence is real, but it has a fragile underside.

Max stops singing after one person says her voice is ugly. That's Chapter 3. The story of how she finds her voice again — not through reassurance, but through the experience of singing for someone who genuinely wants to hear her — is one of the most layered narratives in the series.

Max is for children who have been told their thing isn't good. And for children who look confident from the outside and feel something different on the inside.

[Read Max's story](/stories/lumi-and-the-missing-melody)

Chicko

A baby chick who is afraid of the world outside the barn. Everything is too big, too loud, too unknown.

Chicko's story is about the smallest possible unit of bravery: one step. Not a leap, not a dramatic transformation. Just to the barn door. Then to the yard. Then a little further.

We designed Chicko for the youngest children in our audience — children who are themselves navigating enormous, overwhelming firsts. Preschool. A new sibling. A new house. The world outside the barn.

[Read Chicko's first step story](/stories/lumi-and-the-first-step)

Wolfie

The wolf. And everyone in Maplewood has already decided who Wolfie is.

Wolfie is the most misunderstood character in the village — not because of anything Wolfie has done, but because of what Wolfie looks like and the assumptions everyone has made. Wolfie is deeply lonely. And deeply kind. And has never given up hoping that someone will see past the surface.

We saved Wolfie for Chapter 5 deliberately. By then, children have spent time with four characters they love. When Wolfie appears — when they see the loneliness and the kindness — the contrast with how the village treats Wolfie lands harder. That's the intention.

Wolfie is for every child who has been judged before being known. And for every child who needs to reconsider a judgment they've already made.

[Read Wolfie's story](/stories/lumi-and-the-lonely-shadow)

The Village Is the Point

Maplewood is designed to feel like a community where everyone belongs, even when belonging is hard. The characters are different in exactly the ways that matter — they struggle differently, they need different things — and the village holds all of them.

That's the world we want to read children into. And into which they then read themselves.

[Browse all free Lumafable stories](/stories)