The New Friend: A Picture Book

by Charlotte Zolotow, Benjamin Chaud (Illustrator)

Overview

A Kirkus Best Picture Book of the Year, author Charlotte Zolotow and award-winning illustrator Benjamin Chaud’s The New Friend is a poignant evocation of childhood pain and jealousy at the desertion of a best friend, with a message of optimism and empowerment.
 
A child reminisces about the many moments of joy and playfulness he used to share with his dear old companion, who has, sadly, made a new friend. Although he is sad, he finds the strength to keep his head high and sets out to find a new playmate.
 
“The devoted friendship of two children ends without warning . . . This all-too-common childhood experience is dramatized with an emotional honesty that, refreshingly, skirts sentimentality.” —Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)
 
“Zolotow’s gentle, introspective text, honest about the narrator’s anger and sadness, is now accompanied by new but vintage-feeling illustrations from Chaud . . . A hopeful but not too neat story of a situation likely to be relatable to many.” —Horn Book



 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781990252013
Publisher:	Milky Way Picture Books
Publication date:	11/02/2021
Pages:	44
Product dimensions:	8.50(w) x 10.75(h) x 0.50(d)
Age Range:	3 - 7 Years

About the Author

Iconic American author Charlotte Zolotow (1915–2013) was also a poet, editor, and publisher of over 70 picture books for children. Her work was published by more than 20 different houses (many of which she has outlived!). In 1998, the Charlotte Zolotow Award, which recognizes outstanding writing in a published picture book, was created. Benjamin Chaud was born in the Hautes-Alpes and studied drawing and applied arts at both the Arts Appliqués in Paris and the Arts Décoratifs in Strasbourg. His work has received multiple awards and his books have been recommended by the New York Times. He is also a three-time nominee for the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award (2017, 2018, and 2020). Chaud has worked with numerous publishers, including Albin Michel and Actes Sud, and his award-winning books have been translated into over 20 languages.

 
 

Editorial Reviews

“The devoted friendship of two children ends without warning . . . This all-too-common childhood experience is dramatized with an emotional honesty that, refreshingly, skirts sentimentality.”—Kirkus (starred review)
 

— Kirkus

Zolotow’s gentle, introspective text, honest about the narrator’s anger and sadness, is now accompanied by new but vintage-feeling illustrations from Chaud.  (...) A hopeful but not too neat story of a situation likely to be relatable to many.

— The Horn Book

From the Publisher

★ 2021-08-31
The devoted friendship of two children ends without warning.

The narrator uses the past tense to describe an easygoing, intimate friendship: “I had a friend / a dear friend / with long brown hair.” The two delighted in playing outdoors: picking wildflowers, wading in the brook, and talking and reading together underneath a tree. But one day the narrator calls for her, and “she [isn’t] there.” A trip through the woods reveals that she is with a different friend, and this new duo does many of the same things she once did with the narrator. The narrator grieves—but dreams of a new friendship. Zolotow’s text, originally published in 1968 (with illustrations by Emily Arnold McCully), sensitively captures the trauma of abruptly losing a friend, never diminishing the pain of such a betrayal. Yet the story does not allow the protagonist to wallow in self-pity and instead ends on a moderately hopeful note: The narrator, though still sad, considers a future in which “I won’t care” about having lost this friendship. Chaud’s illustrations feature a verdant, richly colored world as the children run and play in the woods. Playful animal face masks the pair enjoys are used to great effect: When loyalties are abandoned, the narrator disconsolately watches the two new friends wear them, and an enigmatic rabbit mask conceals the identity of the narrator’s imagined new friend. All children are depicted as White.

This all-too-common childhood experience is dramatized with an emotional honesty that, refreshingly, skirts sentimentality. (Picture book. 4-10)

Kirkus Reviews