WE FORGOT BROCK!

Phillip and Brock are best friends. They spend all their time goofing around together. The only problem is his parents can see Phillip but not Brock.

This tale of a boy and his imaginary friend is told in one or two sentences per page, along with watercolor illustrations that depict a cheery, 1950s-feeling home. Phillip’s parents play along with their son’s imaginary friend, Brock. One evening when the family returns from the fair, disaster strikes. In a two-page spread, despair consumes Phillip’s face as he sobs, “WE FORGOT BROCK!” Back at the fair, however, Brock meets Anne, who introduces him to Princess Sparkle Dust and offers to take him home with them. Though Anne and Princess Sparkle Dust try to cheer him up, Brock misses Phillip. Eventually the pair is reunited, and when Brock introduces Phillip to his new friends, they all become best friends, though his parents can still see only the two children. Goodrich plays with perspective, sometimes including his imaginary characters, done in monochromatic lines as if by a child, in an illustration and sometimes not, for funny counterpoint. Though the illustrations are sweet, the story feels slight, and it adds little new or exciting to the imaginary-friend shelf. In addition, the stereotypical renderings of Brock as a sword-wielding, black-and-white pirate and Princess Sparkle Dust as a big-haired, purple princess are unfortunate.

Forget Brock.