Renée French

Three children encounter a strange monster on the beach. One of them, Cyril, forms a bond with it, but it's unclear whether the monster is a threat or a friend.

The children wear masks and wander around in a barren landscape devoid of other humans. One of them has a tail. The whole thing is quite bizarre, yet also beautiful and sad.

Frog and Toad; Gerald and Piggie; Barry and Polarhog? Hmmm.... The two friends, featured in Renee French’s Barry’s Best Friend. Barry is boring and Polarhog is on a mission to liven him up. He leads Barry through the pages, offering hats (“I do NOT like hats”) and ice cream (“I do NOT like ice cream”) to distract the bird while ants prepare a surprise.

The pictures are appealing, but may be a bit confusing to readers. The characters appear multiple times on some pages, with no show more frames to separate the images. In spite of this, beginning readers will enjoy this sweet, goofy story of two very different friends. show less

The story of a boy with an unusual appearance and his father, who must have been born similarly, and what that appearance means to each of them. Honestly, this book just made me sad. It's beautifully drawn but I just wanted the father and son to communicate with each other instead of - well, not. Alas.

The drawings in this book were fabulous, I absolutely love the style. But the story... The first half I liked; Edison is born and his mother dies, and he has his father's [deformed] face, so the father takes him away where it won't be seen. The first half or so is little Ed just growing and exploring the world around him. But then he gets older and the book takes a rather depressing turn, and it just keeps getting more depressing as it goes on. I want to love it, just like I love the art, show more and it has a good message, I think. But it's just so utterly depressing. show less