Hello, friends! Our book today is Almost Always Best, Best Friends by Apryl Stott, a sweet tale of friendship and communication.

Poppy the tiger and Clementine the llama (alpaca? sheep? adorable and fluffy regardless) are best, best friends. They love to spend the day together – playing, doing experiments, baking, and working on their bookmark-crafting business. One afternoon, Clementine is playing at the house of a new friend, Georgia, and Poppy is nervous that Clem will like Georgia better. When Clementine returns singing the praises of Georgia, Poppy feels betrayed and insecure, and lashes out. Can Poppy and Clementine repair their relationship, or is this the end of the best, best friends?

Heartwarming. Little bookworms’ friendships can often be plagued by jealousy, especially when a new figure upsets the status quo of an established friendship. In addition to exploring the idea that friendship is not a finite resource, and that best friends can come in threes just as well as twos, Stott also nicely works in a lesson on communicating feelings and the use of “I” statements (“I feel… when… because… What I need is…”). An extremely effective approach to conflict resolution, Stott introduces it in simple terms and shows how helpful it can be when trying to work out disagreements. Beyond that, the lovely watercolor and digital art is bursting with life and character (and flowers!), the length is great for an elementary storytime, and JJ enjoyed it. This is a gentle yet functional look at friendship dynamics for little ones, and we liked it a lot. Baby Bookworm approved!

(Note: A copy of this book was provided to The Baby Bookworm by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.)