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*My Friends* by Taro Gomi
 
Also by Taro Gomi:

What Do You Wear?

Presents Through the Window: A Taro Gomi Christmas Book

Squiggles: A Really Giant Painting and Drawing Book

Spring Is Here/Llego La Primavera [bilingual]

My Friends/Mis Amigos [bilingual]

I Lost My Dad
My Friends
by Taro Gomi
ages 0-3 34 pages Chronicle Books July 2005 Board book    

An adorable little girl pays tribute to a wide range of animals and people in Japanase author and artist Taro Gomi’s My Friends.

The girl spends the majority of the book’s 17 pages simply acknowledging her animal friends for teaching her life skills, claiming, for example, that walking was taught by the cat, climbing by the monkeys, and singing by the birds. She ends by honoring her books, teachers, and schoolmates for teaching her to read, study, play, and love.

This edition of My Friends is in board book format and therefore appropriate for the youngest in the audience, but it also seemed to capture the imagination of my five-year-old son, and he has requested it many times. As a parent, one thing did strike me as odd: I realize the book is entitled My Friends, and is fiction, but I had to wonder just where the girl’s parents happened to be, while she was out learning to nap from a crocodile, climbing with monkeys, and kicking with a gorilla! Neither parent is mentioned as a learning influence. Still, I enjoyed the book, particularly the watercolor illustrations Gomi is known for, done in interesting colors and with Japanese elements that are quite pleasing to the eye.

Children's board book reviews for babies and toddlers

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  M.M. Renshaw/2005 for curled up with a good kid's book  






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