I’M THE BEST by Lucy Cousins (Picture Book)

A Book Review by Violet (all on her own)

This is my second book review and I think you will like it because I wrote one review already and that was good practice and I am probably going to get even better at writing reviews and I pick out the best books to read and review. You might not like my review because maybe I need even more practice. But I know you will like the book anyway because it is so good.

I’M THE BEST (Candlewick, 2010) is about a dog named Dog. He wears colorful checkered pants. The pants don’t have anything to do with the story. I just like them.

Everybody likes to be the best at something, but Dog gets greedy and wants to be the best at everything and then he wants to make sure that all his friends know he’s the best at everything. He has four friends. He has a ladybug friend named Ladybug, a mole friend named Mole, a goose friend named Fred (just kidding, the goose friend is named Goose), and a donkey friend named Donkey.

Dog has a contest with Ladybug and a contest with Mole and a contest with Goose and a contest with Donkey. Dog wins them all. I won’t tell you what all of the contests are because you can read the book and see for yourself. But I will give an example and that example is that Dog has a swimming contest with Donkey. Dog doggy paddles and Donkey donkey paddles and Dog doggy paddles faster than Donkey donkey paddles so Dog wins the swimming race. And then he says “I win. I’m the best.” He says that every time he wins a contest with his friends and he wins all the contests. And winning all the contests makes him so happy he does a happy dance and he says “I’m the best at everything!” And that is one of my favorite pages because Dog is so happy and there is a lot of happy color that looks like fireworks and confetti and happiness exploding.

But then you turn the happy page and see his friends are sad because they aren’t the best at anything and that makes them sad because it’s fun to be the best at something. But they lost all the contests so they are sad. This page doesn’t have exploding colors of happiness. It has sad, mopey faces of sadness.

But Mole reminds them that they are the best at something. Dog and Goose had a contest about digging holes and—oops, I wasn’t going to tell you about the other contests but I just did and I didn’t mean to but since I already did I will tell you what I was going to say. Dog won the digging contest and said “I win. I’m the best.” But he was wrong. He won that contest with Goose but then he has the same digging contest with Mole and he loses so this time Mole gets to say “I win. I’m the best.” And that makes Mole happy. But that makes Dog sad. And they have more contests and Dog loses them all because Goose can goosey paddle faster than Dog can doggy paddle and so Goose wins the swimming contest. Goose is happy and Dog is sad. And then Dog loses contests with Ladybug and Donkey. And he is really sad. He isn’t the best at anything any more.

Dog is feeling really sad now that he has lost all the contests and isn’t the best at anything. Then he knows how sad his friends felt when they lost all the contests and thought they weren’t the best at anything. And that makes Dog really, really sad because now he knows that he hurt their feelings. He says he is sorry to all of his friends. And guess what? They forgive him. And because he is such a good friend to say he is sorry it turns out that he is the best at something. He is their best friend. And he also has the best fluffy ears. And so the book is over and everybody is happy and everybody is the best at something. And then the last page is funny because Dog is still Dog and he brags that having the best fluffy ears is the best best thing. But I don’t think his friends will be mad or sad because they know how he is and they love him. And I love this book and I love writing reviews and I think I am the best at writing reviews. Well, maybe not the best best, but pretty best.