Review Detail

Even Better Than Sprinkles: A Story About Best Friends

Kids Fiction 265

When Friends Hit a Bumpy Patch

August 06, 2024 (Updated: August 06, 2024)

Overall rating

4.0

Plot

4.0

Characters

4.0

Writing Style

4.0

Illustrations/Photos (if applicable)

4.0

Two little girls are best friends... the kind of friends who will always let you be the knight while they are the dragon, will put up with your bad singing, and even name their guppies after you. The two have an excellent time until one girl blows out the other's birthday candles, and they have the kind of fight that devolves into never speaking to each other again. But fighting with a friend is lonely, and even though the girl who blew out the candles really wanted the wish, she knows she was in the wrong. She makes a lovely apology card with glue and lots of glitter, and delivers it to her friend, who is gracious enough to accept. After all, it's always good to have someone around to share things with, and to be the back end of your unicorn costume.

Good Points

This felt like a fresh and modern picture book. I liked the bright colors of the pictures, which got a little darker when the girls were fighting, and the modern aesthetics. The message, too, was very on trend: people make mistakes, but we need to forgive them. There was a straightforwardness to the whole concept of the book that was quite refreshing.

Of course, I just noticed that both little girls are wearing skirts. Can you even buy skirts for little girls anymore? Or tiny cardigans? I don't have access to any actual tiny people.

No matter. Young readers will no doubt have had several incidents, even if they are young, of their friends making them angry, and this book would be helpful in working through that. I can see an adult asking a child to list some of the things that the child does with a best friend that makes that person indispensable to them. The idea to make an apology card (and maybe some cupcakes with sprinkles) is one to be embraced as well.

Have this book on hand for the inevitable tears that flow when friendships hit bumpy patches, along with Yoon's Be a Friend, Watson's Best Friends in the Universe, or Underwood and Ruzzier's Walter Had a Best Friend.