My Friends

Gomi's simple watercolors, marked by spare, cutout shapes, are set against aclean white background. An elemental story that will reach toddlers and older preschoolers alike.

In this ode to everyday activities and things, a free-spirited girl hops, jumps and kicks her way across the countryside, paying homage to her friends along the way. Like a satellite launched into perpetual motion, the constantly moving child praises--among others--the rooster who taught her to march, the ant who taught her to explore the earth and the teachers who taught her to study. In spare, luminous landscapes, the minute world reveals a special beauty to those still and attentive enough to behold it. The activities depicted are alternately lively and quiet, but the prevailing mood is one of continuous celebration. Gomi's "(Bus Stops; Where's the Fish?)" meticulous sense of design and careful use of brilliantly colored, highly delineated images imbues the story with a sense of the wonder and delight to be derived from life's simplest--but bountiful--moments. Ages 2-4.

Copyright 1990 Publishers Weekly Used with permission.

—"PARENTS' CHOICE" Starred Review
The illustrations are vibrant. The story is simple—a little girl tells what she has learned from her friend the cat, her friend the dog, her friend the horse, her friend the gorilla and other friends both common and unlikely. Children will quickly be pointing out the whimsical details in the art.

—"FIVE OWLS," September/October 1990
Winner of the Graphic Prize at the 1989 Bologna Children's Book Fair, Taro Gomi has once more created a perfect blend of art and text in this simple picture book in which a little girl's animal friends demonstrate some basic actions learned in life. The little girl gives credit to a variety of living creatures for exemplifying things humans are apt to take for granted, from walking to star-gazing and from singing to smelling the flowers.
The young learner accepts easily the examples provided by her animal friends and then moves smoothly to learning from books, teachers, and human friends the more complicated tasks of reading, studying, and playing together. The straightforward text is rhythmic, and the graphic collage style is brilliantly colored. Subtle and humorous details, expressions, actions, and objects encourage careful rereading.