Best Best Friends (review)

Mary and Clare share the intimacy of preschoolers who have found that certain someone who is just alike enough and just different enough to form a perfect complement. Clutching matching teddy bears of different hues, they move through their days together in uninterrupted harmony. When the special attention Mary receives as birthday girl begins to chafe on Clare, however, jealousy ripens into mean-spiritedness and harsh words, causing a breakup that lasts until after naptime; fortunately, Clare draws a picture for Mary as a peace offering, and all is forgiven. The simple familiarity of a tiff between friends achieves eloquent expression in Chodos-Irvine's thoughtful compositions. Using various print-making techniques, she blocks out a multicultural cast of chunky preschoolers, taking care to set Mary and Clare in mirrored poses as their conflict escalates and then again as it is resolved. Color becomes a metaphor for separate identity melding into togetherness as Mary's signature pink and Clare's yellow combine in a particularly effective spread featuring Clare's conciliatory drawing on the verso and the girls in various postures of working things out on the recto. This is a gently effective portrayal of what happens when sugar and spice devolves into sugar and spite, and audiences will warm to its firm faith that best best friends can make everything nice again.