Forever Friends

by Carin Berger, Carin Berger (Illustrator)

Overview

Seasons come, seasons go. But a little brown bunny and a graceful blue bird discover that friendship, true friendship, lasts forever.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780061915284
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	03/02/2010
Pages:	40
Product dimensions:	8.10(w) x 11.00(h) x 0.50(d)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Carin Berger is an award-winning designer and illustrator. Her cut-paper collages are made using ephemera, such as catalogues, old books, receipts, letters, and ticket stubs. In a starred review, Kirkus said of her Forever Friends, “Sophisticated, sensitive, and accessible, this picture book will offer new insights and pleasures with each season.” The Little Yellow Leaf was a 2008 New York Times Best Illustrated Children’s Books selection, and in starred reviews, Publishers Weekly called her A Perfect Day “lovely” and her Finding Spring “exceptional.” She is also the illustrator of the acclaimed Stardines Swim High Across the Sky and Behold the Bold Umbrellaphant, both by Jack Prelutsky, among other books. She lives with her family in New York City. www.carinberger.com

Carin Berger is an award-winning designer and illustrator. Her cut-paper collages are made using ephemera, such as catalogues, old books, receipts, letters, and ticket stubs. In a starred review, Kirkus said of her Forever Friends, “Sophisticated, sensitive, and accessible, this picture book will offer new insights and pleasures with each season.” The Little Yellow Leaf was a 2008 New York Times Best Illustrated Children’s Books selection, and in starred reviews, Publishers Weekly called her A Perfect Day “lovely” and her Finding Spring “exceptional.” She is also the illustrator of the acclaimed Stardines Swim High Across the Sky and Behold the Bold Umbrellaphant, both by Jack Prelutsky, among other books. She lives with her family in New York City. www.carinberger.com

Editorial Reviews

Sophisticated, sensitive and accessible, this picture book will offer new insights and pleasures with each season.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Enchanting.” — School Library Journal

From the Publisher

The appeal of this book lies in its elegantly designed collage pictures. ­Berger plays textures like tree bark, block-printed leaves and chunks of typography against airy backgrounds of graph paper, exercise-book pages and blocks of simple color. Trees and flowers embellish the pages with the freshness of those beautiful Japanese prints decorated with boughs of cherry blossoms. The trajectories of the sveltely shaped animals (Matisse comes to mind) as they fly and hop in their play are described in dotted lines that swoop and bounce around the pages like science diagrams that went to art school. The effect is aesthetically refined but also warm. Berger adds little details, like a sliver of pink in the rabbit's ear, that lift the image off the page both graphically and emotionally…
—The New York Times

Jim McMullan

This quiet book about friendship retains many of the design elements and collage devices from Berger’s The Little Yellow Leaf—red polka-dot mushrooms pop up in the forest setting, dotted lines indicate the paths taken by the main characters, lined paper serves as an occasional backdrop, and words are tucked into the painted bark of trees and other vegetation. This time a blue bird and brown bunny become friends in spring, and because the bird must fly south for the winter, they are separated for months. When, “at last, the sun chase[s] away the snow,” they play together once more as “forever friends.” While Berger’s illustrations convey moments of both joy and isolation, this undemanding tale about friends being separated and rejoined isn’t quite as moving or poignant as Berger’s previous story. Nonetheless, fans of Berger’s spare aesthetic will enjoy scenes of pink tree blossoms arching over a log and the animals cavorting under fuzzy globes of firefly light in summer, as well as the basic message that real friendship overcomes distance. Ages 2–6. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

Spring sparks a perennial friendship between bunny and bird, who frolic together until winter's chill forces the bird south, promising a spring reunion. Past-tense narration may jar readers at first, but it signals early on this picture book's original treatment of time and cyclical change. Shapes and comforting matte colors layer to create blossoms, mushrooms, meadows and trees, with satisfying, simple sweetness. Words come sparingly too, in soft, measured lines that bring heart to the minimal illustrations. Berger allows ephemera (shreds of newspapers, receipts, tickets) to peek out from under layers and around edges of artwork. These flashes of everyday, human bustle produce incredibly effective incongruence, keeping readers attuned to the artist's powerful, honed depictions of nature. Her technique leaves readers poised to discern the grid of measured time in the graph paper on which she plants trees, to see how the snow in bunny's winter night looks identical to bird's far-away tropical stars and to feel both the animals' shared loneliness and immutable connection. Sophisticated, sensitive and accessible, this picture book will offer new insights and pleasures with each season. (Picture book. 2-6)

Kirkus Reviews

PreS-Gr 1—A blue bird and a brown rabbit frolic together through spring, summer, and fall. By late autumn, the bird announces that it must fly south but promises to be back once the weather warms up again. The rabbit spends the cold winter months missing its friend, while the bird longs for the bunny. Before long, spring returns and the two are reunited. The succinct prose touchingly expresses the value of friendship between these two very different creatures. Although they must spend a portion of the year apart, there is still the promise of more good times to come, which shows young readers the value of patience. The cut-paper collages created from paper products range from old books to ticket stubs. The effect is enchanting, giving each detail a unique design. The color scheme is also indicative of the various seasons, where spring is most represented by bright green, summer deep blue, fall golden brown, and winter soft lavender dusted with white.—Donna Atmur, Los Angeles Public Library

School Library Journal