Product Description
Two Caldecott honorees—and real-life best friends— team up to illustrate a story of friendship from bestselling author Julie Fogliano.
Like the two stars of this story, illustrators Molly Idle and Juana Martinez-Neal know that differences only make a good friendship stronger. In this bouncy, rhyming story, two best friends think about all the little things that don’t matter– and the big things that really, really do.
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.
With each artist designing and drawing one character, and collaborating on the scenery and details, Molly Idle and Juana Martinez-Neal transformed this sweet story into a celebration of friendship– including their own– and a unique artistic vision.
Working remotely, they swapped drawings across the country, using a limited palette of teal and yellow over graphite. 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.
Award-winning author Julie Fogliano’s rhythmic rhymes bring it all together, expressing the unconditional love any best friend can relate to.
From School Library Journal
Gr 1–3—In silken soft graphite scenes with teal and yellow highlights, two children—each drawn by one of the two illustrators to be self representative—deliver a lesson in values that also happens to be as moving a declaration of close friendship as ever was. Like their expressions, which start out as scowls but change partway through to smiles and exchanged glances, the incantatory lines begin in forbidding tones ("i [sic] really don't care what you think of my hair/ or my eyes or my toes or my nose") but shift key for the important things: "i really do care/ that you always play fair…," going on to "and i care if you smile/ and i care if you're sad/ and i care if you're worried/ and i care if you're mad," on the way to "and i care that we're always/ and i care that we're two/ and i care that we're friends/ and i care that we're true." The lighter haired of the twosome is ambiguously gendered, and along with being easy on the eyes and written in language and cadences that particularly lend themselves to choral reading, this warm, wise, lyrical expression of togetherness is refreshingly clear of the sentimentality that goops up such similarly themed titles as Carmela Coyle's Do Princesses Have Best Friends Forever? or Monica Sheehan's Love Is You & Me. VERDICT A psychologically acute tally of friendship's most solid foundations, worth sharing with audiences large or small and tailor-made for reading aloud.—John Edward Peters
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."—Booklist, Starred Review
★ "A psychologically acute tally of friendship’s most solid foundations, worth sharing with audiences large or small and tailor-made for reading aloud."—School Library Journal, 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."—Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review
"[An] enchanting, energetic picture book. . . . Idle and Martinez-Neal each took responsibility for drawing one of the children
