This Book Is My Best Friend

This all-dialogue picture book from Robinson (No One Returns from the Enchanted Forest) opens with two kids--one with pale skin, red hair, and big glasses, and one with brown skin and dark wavy hair--reaching for the same robot book on the library shelf. Each claims the book as their respective BFF, asserts possession based on passion for an element of the story, and tries to wave off the competition with an alternative title. But within a few pages, the children each reveal that the book is a critical source of solace: one child's mother is in the hospital, and the title is a "nice, familiar best friend" that "makes being alone less scary." For the other, the book offers "a quiet world" amid a bustling household that includes twin infant siblings. As the kids suggest alternate titles for each other, empathy and friendship blossom, and the two realize they can share the book during their library visit. Earnest and moving, with thin-lined scenes in green, orange, and teal that affirm the variously diverse library-going community, the story underscores the many roles that books can play, including modeling compassion, understanding, and connection. Ages 4-8. (Jan.)

K-Gr 3--Two children with enormous stresses in their lives--the brown-skinned black-haired child has an elderly daadi with a long gray braid who seems to have her hands full plus new twin siblings at home, and the lighter-skinned redhead has a mother hooked up to machines in a hospital bed--bicker politely over a book, Factory Friends, about robots that they both declare is their "best friend." They can each back it up with wonderful reasoning; they both offer the other decent substitutes. Continuing glimpses of their home lives show readers why this one book is so exceptionally important. Robinson, in words and art, shows the children taking apart just how the book makes them feel, and through communication, they discover that the friendship at the heart of the book is something they can share in real life. This sigh-worthy ending is one that every reader will cheer for, and the illustrations, showing absolute wall after wall of bookshelves, are an endless delight. VERDICT The comfort of books is well known but perhaps never tackled so resolutely. The children here are relatable and never precocious, keeping the argument civilized, sincere, and for readers, too, win-win.--Kimberly Olson Fakih