Sparse but lovely ( )

This story shows how a friendship is very precious to have. It also shows how two unlike animals could be friends but end up becoming friends. The longest length of time or distance you live, you can always have a friendship with someone you care about. Many obstacles many get in the way but true friends will always stay the same. ( )

OK, it's official! Carin Berger has joined the ranks of those picture-book artists - Il Sung Na and Shaun Tan among them - whose new work I eagerly anticipate. This is the third Berger book I've read - following upon The Little Yellow Leaf, and Jack Prelutsky's Behold the Bold Umbrellaphant: And Other Poems - and I found the collage illustrations so gorgeous, I didn't even really care that the narrative was a little weak. That doesn't often happen...

Created using a variety of papers - lined paper, graphing paper, handmade paper in vivid hues - each two-page spread has a very stylized look, while still perfectly capturing the emotion of the story. I really liked the various color schemes - some bright, some more muted - and the little creative details, like the dotted lines indicating motion, while also creating interesting visual patterns. Everything just worked so well together, on the page, that perusing Forever Friends was a real joy! ( )

Berger, Carin. Forever Friends. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 2010.

Character: A little blue bird and a brown bunny.

Setting: The story is set in the forest and goes through the four seasons.

Theme: Friendship and the rewards of patience.

Genre: Children’s illustrated book.

Golden quote: “Now I must fly south, said the bird. But I promise, come spring, I’ll be back.”

Summary: This story is about a blue bird that lives in a tree befriending a brown bunny that lives in a log below. The two play together throughout the forest and throughout the seasons. When winter comes, the bird has to migrate south and the bunny is left alone. The bird and the bunny miss each other equally and when spring came, they were reunited. The played with each other like nothing ever changed.

Audience: Preschool

Curriculum ties: It teaches friendship and that if someone says they are coming back, they will.

Personal response: This is a very cute story about to unlike friends. The bird and the bunny display what it means to be friends and how friends play with one another. The illustrations in the book are very unique, since the illustrator used construction paper along with some other methods to create the pictures. The colors in the book relates to whichever season the story happens to be in, so winter was a dark blue while spring consisted of bright yellows. I really like how the author named out the months of winter to show a sense of time for the kids. This allows the kids to see how long the bunny and the blue bird had to wait before being reunited. The ending was very clever too, since it stated that the two were friends forever, making the readers think about how the two friends would be separated again come winter. It shows that real friendships will last no matter what obstacles or length of time the friends are separated.

The illustrations are AMAZING in this book- they are kind of like a collage or mixed media style, and I found them to be both beautiful and interesting. I loved the storyline almost as much as I loved the pictures. This book is adorable, and I plan on adding it to my personal library soon.