Why Can’t We Be Bestie-corns?

Navigating the waters of friendship has its challenges. Kevin and Eric, two unicorns, try to make a go of things when Eric moves in next door. Kevin is Mr. Friendly Unicorn and usually has no difficulties making friends. However, this new neighbor next door is different. For the first time, Kevin finds making a new BFF (Best Friend Forever) a struggle.

Kevin is a Magical Friend-Making Machine – everyone knows this and loves to high five him and share jokes with him. He has never had difficulties in this area – until Eric moves next door. Kevin has dreams of making a new Bestie-Corn Friend and offers Eric his best experiences – glitter sodas at the Soda Shack, skateboarding and painting! Who doesn’t like these activities, right? Well, apparently Eric doesn’t! Eric drinks clam juice instead of glitter soda. Eric constantly falls off the skateboard before giving it up as a bad job. More paint gets on Eric than on the canvas when he tries something “artsy”. Eric is not having fun. This is an earth-shaking shock to Kevin.

For his part, Eric also offers up the best of his favorite activities – Movie Night, camping, dancing and a picnic in the park. These are sure to win him a Best Friend! Eric is appalled to find out that Kevin responds with awkward politeness. Kevin’s unicorn body wraps up into knots during their dance session. They watch a scary movie that keeps Kevin up all night! The cheese at the picnic is too painfully strong in flavour. On their camping trip, the mosquitos pepper Kevin’s body, and his marshmallow goes up in flames! What a disaster!

What can these two unicorns do? Both of them talk to their friends about this dilemma. When each of them receives an invitation from the other unicorn to an activity both of them dislike, they decide that honesty is the only solution.

Eric, you’re a very awesome-corn.

I want us to be bestie-corns and

Do everything together! But I just

Don’t like the same things you do!

Thank RAINBOWS!

I totally feel the same way, but

I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.

Then comes the best part of the book! The two friends agree that not everyone can be BFFs. Sometimes unicorns just have to be friendly to others with whom they don’t have much in common. And they decide that this is what they have to do.

Instead of trying to force a friendship,

Eric and Kevin decided to just be friendly.

It turns out unicorns aren’t

Always meant to be bestie-corns…

And that’s okay.

It’s refreshing to read a book that teaches this great truth – you cannot be best friends with everyone! But you can still be respectful, friendly and encouraging! It is great to see an author model this concept!

The illustrations are bright, attractive and colourful – guaranteed to draw young children in. However, it is unfortunate that the illustrator and author included food choices that are high in sugar and fat. Why sodas, cookies, sprinkle snacks and donuts? Unicorns are supposed to be herbivores - eating grass, plants, flowers and berries. With obesity as a problem in today’s culture, could not healthier choices have been modelled?

Also, it is unfortunate that the only thing unicorn-ish about these two friends is the characters themselves. They have the body of unicorns but, in every other respect, they are human in their activity choices (camping, picnics, skateboarding) and living situations (houses, streets, tvs) and the foods they eat. Maybe this is because the audience is so young and unicorns capture their imagination? It might have been better to change the characters to two human boys.

The language of Why Can’t We Be Bestie-corns? is pretty straightforward and communicates clearly. There are a few examples of alliteration (“Great galloping glitter pants!) and of play on words (Bestie-corns, Holy Hooves) but, overall, the language is pretty ordinary.