Our Best Friends
by Gyo Fujikawa
Grosset & Dunlap, 1977
Did some rooting in the attic yesterday and found the mother load. This was a present given to me by my father the first Christmas after my parents split. As you can imagine, I coveted it pretty hard.
The super weird thing is, the story completely mirrored what I was feeling at the time. We'd just moved to a new place, my daddy was a thousand miles away, and I felt pretty isolated and alone.
"I love you Smudge," said Mary.
"And I love Doll and Mouse, too.
I love you all forever and ever.
But we are lonely.
We need new friends.
Don't you agree?"
Mary does find new friends... in the form of two cute boys, a dog, a bird and a bunny rabbit... every young girl's fantasy, right? I've always dug Fujikawa's drawings -- the round heads of the children and the almost human expressions on the animals.
This page with the house in particular, the scene of perfection with Mary's awesome little play shack out back down the winding dirt path. God, how I wanted to live there. I've been thinking about when to share this one with my son... but you know, there might be a few stories I need to keep just for myself.
Also by:
A Child's Garden of Verses
A Child's Book of Poems
Let's Grow a Garden
Baby Animals
Oh, What a Busy Day!
Come Follow me
Fairy Tales and Fables
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Thanks so much for this post. It brought back some memories for me because I also grew up with a Gyo Fujikawa book (a board book) that I loved and my son has loved, too: "Let's Eat." Obviously it doesn't have as deep of a meaning, but I'm inspired to find some more books by the same author for him.
ReplyDeleteJonathan's mom
mother goose is THE BEST!
ReplyDeleteOh, this is one of my very, very favorite Gyo Fujikawa books! If you can, check out Betty Bear's Birthday, too. That was another favorite of mine. Since your son likes animals, he should enjoy it.
ReplyDeleteGyo F. is like the feminine version of Richard Scarry (sorry -- been a while since I commented!)
ReplyDeleteI am also a HUGE fan of Gyo Fujikawa's drawings! I've never seen this one before.
ReplyDelete