I Don't Care

by Julie Fogliano (Author) Juana Martinez-Neal (Illustrator)

Reading Level: K − 1st Grade

Two Caldecott honorees and real-life best friends team up to illustrate a lyrical story of friendship, from bestselling author Julie Fogliano.

Like the two stars of this story, illustrators Molly Idle and Juana Martinez-Neal know that petty differences just make a good friendship stronger. As artwork passed back and forth between their mailboxes, childhood versions of each artist came to life and came together on the page into one unified creation. The simple palette of teal and yellow over graphite was an easy choice: their two favorite colors.

Award-winning author Julie Fogliano's rhythmic rhymes bring it all together, expressing the unconditional love any best friend can relate to: "Mostly I care that you're you and I'm me, and I care that we're us, and I care that we're we."

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Kirkus

Starred Review
A friendship book made by friends. . . . Fogliano's deftly rhymed verses, which never miss a beat in their cadence or in their emotional resonance, help readers realize that while the friends don't care about surface matters like appearance, attire, or possessions, they do care about each other. Compositionally, they end up occupying shared space on the spreads and will doubtlessly take up residence in readers' hearts, too. . . . Show you care by sharing this book with others.

ALA/Booklist

Starred Review
Fogliano's sprightly, rhythmic text sets a fun tone for exploring what really matters in friendship. While effective picture books grow from the combining of words and images, this book takes the collaboration a step further by drawing on the talents of real-life best friends and Caldecott honorees Idle and Martinez-Neal. . . . The result is a warm, loving celebration of how to be a friend, and a successful artistic experiment.

None

[An] enjoyable collaboration.

Publishers Weekly

Accompanying fervent text by Fogliano (My Best Friend) that tumbles forth in a burst of confessions, friends Idle (Witch Hazel) and Martinez-Neal (A Perfect Fit) team up to create a visual story about friendship. "I really don't care what you think of my hair/ or my eyes or my toes or my nose," begin rhyming lines, running through an ample list of attributes that the book seems to portray as superficialities. With soft graphite strokes and linocut highlights in teal and yellow, the illustrators draw two young children, portrayed with skin the color of the paper, who each sport blunt-cut hair and sturdy boots. They're leaning against the same tree, arms crossed, looking studiously away from each other. With every line, though, their hard feelings thaw, and they're soon playing together on the page, as the litany turns from "don't"s to "do"s and each speaker voices what's at stake in their friendship: "I really do care/ that you always play fair/ and you don't change the rules/ when I'm winning." While not every reader will be comfortable with a friend who offers sidelong critiques ("I really don't care if your lunches smell weird"), the alternating speakers' loyalty ("and I care that we're friends/ and I care that we're true"), and images of shared experience following conflict, add warmth to this testament to faithful companionship. Ages 3-6. Agents: (for Fogliano and Idle) Steven Malk, Writers House; (for Martinez-Neal) Stefanie Sanchez Von Borstel, Full Circle Literary. (Nov.)

Copyright 2022 Publishers Weekly, LLC Used with permission.

Review quotes

[An] enchanting, energetic picture book. . . . Idle and Martinez-Neal each took responsibility for drawing one of the children, and their care and respect for each shines through in the affection between the characters. . . . Fogliano's verse has the bounce and joie de vivre of a game of hopscotch, making it a joy to read aloud in a group or one-on-one setting. . . . This ode to the bestie bond perfectly captures the essential foundations of friendship in any stage of life.—Shelf Awarness

Julie Fogliano
Julie Fogliano is the New York Times bestselling author of And Then It's Spring, If I Was the Sunshine, Just in Case You Want to Fly, and I Don't Care. Recipient of the Ezra Jack Keats award, her books have been translated into more than ten languages and received multiple starred reviews. Booklist perhaps put it best when they said that Julie "has a knack for capturing the emotional tenor of very specific little kid experiences," and she has continued to do so here. Now more than ever kids (and all of us) need the soft and hopeful encouragement of her words.

Cátia Chien is an award-winning children's book illustrator from Sao Paulo, Brazil. Her first book, The Sea Serpent and Me by Dashka Slater, won a gold medal from the Society of Illustrators. She followed it with A Boy and a Jaguar by Alan Rabinowitz, an ALA Notable Book and recipient of the Schneider Family Book Award. Her book The Bear and the Moon, written by Matthew Burgess, received multiple starred reviews and won a gold medal from the Society of Illustrators' Original Art Show, as well as the Golden Kite Award. She lives in New York City.
Classification
Fiction
ISBN-13
9780823443451
Lexile Measure
-
Guided Reading Level
-
Publisher
Neal Porter Books
Publication date
November 22, 2022
Series
-
BISAC categories
JUV039060 - Juvenile Fiction | Social Themes | Friendship
JUV039140 - Juvenile Fiction | Social Themes | Self-Esteem & Self-Reliance
JUV014000 - Juvenile Fiction | Girls & Women
Library of Congress categories
-

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