SEEKING BEST FRIEND

A young, brown-skinned girl puts out an advertisement for a best friend.

Her initial requirements are simple enough: “Must be kind. A passion for bugs would be neat.” However, when an anteater comes along and shows a little too much interest in her bug hotel, the girl (who remains unnamed) feels compelled to amend her advertisement and throws in another requirement for good measure: “Doesn’t eat my insect collection. Likes to play dress-up.” One by one, candidates show up at her home—including a robot and a fire-breathing dragon—and attempt to meet each new requisite with disappointing results. The girl’s list of stipulations grows increasingly longer and more absurd, but her No. 1, most important requirement—kindness—remains the same. There are plenty of ups and downs before she finds the perfect applicant. The cumulative text is devoted solely to listing the girl’s desiderata while Ewen’s brightly colored, cartoony illustrations dramatize amusing scenes of mounting chaos. Unfortunately, the story has loose ends (Where did the dragon go? Who is the woman dressed like an opera singer who appears on several spreads?), and the lesson that the best way to find a good friend is to be one gets lost in the accumulation of detail.

A fun and worthy premise, but the execution feels underwhelming.