My Best Friend Tilly

One girl lives next door to her best friend Tilly, and she wants to build an extravagant make-believe world for them to explore. This world is full of fire-breathing dragons, rollercoasters, all their favorite animals, a library, and more. On every page, this dream world keeps expanding until Tilly is pushed out of the picture, and now Tilly's world has no space for Tilly.

What I Liked: This book opens by introducing you to a girl and her best friend Tilly, in their houses that are small but right next to each other. The book then takes you on a journey with the little girl as she creates an even bigger house with so many of her and Tilly’s favorite things. Through this, Tilly ends up off the page, and the way this is done is very creative and fun. The pages expand to be able to fit the girl’s imaginative world, and allow you to see just how extensive this world is now. Children will love getting the chance to explore this world while also learning the importance of sharing space with others and how to embrace others’ ideas.

The abundance of creativity throughout this book is entertaining and makes for a great story to share with younger children. The illustrations combine real-life objects, such as cardboard boxes, to create the rooms of Tilly’s world with sketches of the things that the girl is imagining in each of these rooms. The illustrations take you back to childhood when you imagined elaborate things like Tilly’s world and created these places with the stuff you had lying around your house.

Final Verdict: My Best Friend Tilly is a fantastic picture book for children ages 3 and up to encourage them to use their imagination, but also to be mindful that we also make space for others. This book showcases that we don’t need the stuff to have a great time with one another and that sometimes, less is more.