Stories that matter

Friendship is a common theme in many picture books, Bernie Goedhart writes.

My Best Friend

Julie Fogliano Illustrated by Jillian Tamaki Atheneum Books Ages 3 to 7

With lockdown restrictions eased somewhat and warmer weather finally here, children who’ve been cooped up at home for months are getting the chance to play outside with others — provided they keep a safe distance. My Best Friend, Jillian Tamaki’s new picture book, is meant for just such youngsters.

Written by Julie Fogliano, who lives in New York State, it’s the art of Toronto-based Tamaki that brings home the story of two little girls who meet at a neighbourhood park, shyly approach each other and discover they can have fun together. In fact, the narrator is convinced she has just found her best friend — although “I’ve never had a best friend / so I’m not sure.” But the bespectacled girl has shiny black hair (the narrator’s is red), and she laughs at everything — especially when the narrator “pretended to be a pickle / she really really liked that” — and the two of them ran around, chasing each other, but also spent time quietly, under a tree. And even the discovery that “she LOVES strawberry ice cream / and I HATE strawberry ice cream” does not stand in the way of friendship “so that / is something good.”

When the park visit ends and the girls’ parents take them home, the wistful narrator admits she doesn’t know the other girl’s name yet. “But I will ask her tomorrow / and she will tell me then / because we are / best friends.”

Tamaki’s art, digitally rendered, involves limited colour — mostly greens and reds (well, pinks) — but it perfectly captures the personalities of two little girls whose innocent young lives have broadened through a budding friendship that could, with luck, last a lifetime.

You Matter

Christian Robinson Atheneum Books Ages 4 to 8

Christian Robinson, a gifted young artist based in California, begins You Matter, his new picture book released this month, with a hand-lettered dedication on the copyright page: “For anyone who isn’t sure if they matter. You do.”

Working with acrylic paints and collage, he builds a series of images that begin with a little girl peering into a microscope to look at “the small stuff too small to see.”

Colourful two-page spreads then introduce us to tiny creatures in the sea, larger ones that emerge from the water and inhabit the land, minute insects like the mosquito and enormous creatures like the dinosaur — you all matter, Robinson tells us.

Subtle hints of history and evolution might escape the youngest children at whom this book is aimed, but parents reading the text aloud will no doubt pick up on the comet or asteroid headed for the dinosaurs.

“When everyone is too busy to help,” the accompanying text reads. “You matter.” And there is tongue-in-cheek subtle humour in the following images, where Robinson shows us planet Earth followed by Mars with text that reads, respectively, “If you have to start all over again. / Even if you are really gassy. / You matter.”

Having touched on the prehistoric, the author-illustrator now brings things closer to home, beginning with a female astronaut looking down at Earth from space while holding a snapshot of a little boy in hand.

The snapshot hints at what’s to come: Turn the page, and you see that little boy, holding a toy rocket, leaning out an apartment window and clearly missing someone. Down below, a city street crowded with vehicles and pedestrians — including a frantic boy and girl whose dog has escaped, dragging its leash behind it. (Again, a hint at what’s to come.)

“Sometimes you feel lost and alone,” reads the text. “But you matter.” Turn the page and the words above two elderly men on a park bench finish the thought: “Old and young.” And sure enough, here come the boy and girl, their dog now led on a leash through the park. (The girl, by the way, is wearing a pink hijab; the boy is in a wheelchair. Robinson is known for the diversity — and inclusivity — of characters in his books.)

As the men on the bench (one white, one Black) feed pigeons, a little girl rushes by with a toy airplane in hand, stepping over a nest of busy ants: “The small stuff too small to see.”

And there’s the final spread: a little boy peering through an airplane window down at the city traffic below, no doubt feeling small.

“You matter,” Robinson assures him, bringing the message home.