YOU AND ME BOTH

Best friends forever?

The unnamed first-person narrator loves best friend Jamal, and Jamal loves the narrator, too. It’s difficult to track which child is which in the busy illustrations, and physical attributes that might help with this task are inconsistent from spread to spread. For the most part, however, one child (perhaps the speaker, given how text is placed) is usually a purple hue with orange squiggles for hair while the other appears orange with purple squiggles for hair. What is clear is that the pals like the same things, and they adore each other. They’re sad at the school day’s end because they must say goodbye to each other. The final page reads: “Twins should always stick together.” This concluding spread shows the children, their arms around each other, with the most naturalistic appearance they’ve ever had. One child has dark brown skin and curly, perhaps afro-textured hair while the other has light brown skin, freckles, and similarly curly hair. It’s hard to know what readers will make of this conclusion. Are Jamal and the narrator not, in fact, to be parted at the end of the day? Are they children of separated parents in a custody arrangement that separates them as well? Is “twins” to be read metaphorically? Even fairly sophisticated child readers will find themselves wondering just what’s going on, and the potential racial difference implied in the picture only further complicates the readings they may struggle to apply.

Thoroughly opaque.