Almost Always Best, Best Friends

Gr 1-3–Poppy (a tiger) and Clementine (a llama) are best friends. They do everything together, including having a bookmark business. One fateful day, Clementine invites only Georgia (a brown skinned human) over to play. Poppy worries that Georgia, whom she has never met, will become Clementine’s new best friend. Her worst fears are realized when Clementine cannot stop talking about how great Georgia is, and how they made bookmarks together! An outraged Poppy yells at Clementine and goes home. Luckily Poppy’s father is there to help her work through her feelings and role play how to talk to Clementine about them. Later, Poppy and Clementine talk about how the other made them feel and apologize. A happy ending ensues as Poppy, Clementine, and Georgia become best, best friends who run the bookmark business together. Stott’s colorful and lively illustrations clearly depict the joy, worry, hurt feelings, and downright anger of the characters, while never giving in to them. Using crisp details, changing borders, and various text placement, the illustrations keep the dense story moving forward.