You and Me Both

PreS-Gr 1–The unnamed protagonist and Jamal go to school together and have the same likes (building towers and knocking them down, eating strawberry jam on toast, splashing in rain puddles) and dislikes (carrots). They have matching boots and the same haircut, and at the end of the day, saying goodbye is hard for each of them. It’s a classic tale of best friends right up until the end. The final two-page spread depicts a brown and a tan child eating ice cream together with the text, “Twins should always stick together.” The end is confusing, since it’s not clear if the boys are best friends who call themselves twins, or if they are fraternal twins. They don’t look like each other, and neither of them looks like the other kids in the story. The children on the previous pages are depicted in various shades including yellow, green, blue, purple, pink, and orange. Cinar’s illustrations mirror the text in an abstract way. They feature lots of black outlines and imaginative use of color.