A Better Best Friend
by Olivier Tallec; illus. by the author; trans. from French by Antony Shugaar
Preschool, Primary    Gecko    32 pp.
3/24    9781776575732    $18.99

The squirrel protagonist and narrator encounters a mushroom sitting on a log and declares, “This is definitely a best friend. At least I think he is.” With this conviction in mind, the squirrel sets out to mold the mushroom, Pock, in its image of a best friend, showing him “the tree I like most, my secret places in the forest, things you wouldn’t show anyone except a best friend.” The two spend a few seasons together in quiet but content companionship, and Pock’s best-friend status seems secure, until “spring arrives, and so does Moo,” a dragonfly. As the squirrel discovers shared hobbies with the insect, it wonders whether Moo, not Pock, is actually its best friend. This leads to a crisis of decision-making, hilariously expressed: “Moo…Pock…Mo…Mock…Poo…Po…Aaarrrgh!” Just when it seems things can’t get more confusing, yet another new friend appears: Gunther the mouse. Through a distinctive first-person narrative voice that sometimes verges on stream of consciousness, this book explores the question of what makes a best friend and whether it’s possible to have more than one. Tallec’s earth-tone illustrations imbue the pages with an ambience befitting the whimsical forest setting. The characters’ simply drawn faces are evocative, their expressions rendered humorously hyperbolic through their stylized cartoonlike eyes in this funny picture book.

Pubissue-From the March/April 2024 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.