Best friends!

Friends are a big part of life one's life and more so when your growing up. Does your little one have a best pal - with whom he wants to do everything? Abhay was in such a phase in the US. We even switched schools, enrolled into classes because his best friend was there. At the final leg of our US stint, we even moved to the same apartment complex where his best friend stayed….and so his best friend’s house was literally a hop, skip and a jump away! With children as best buddies, we moms couldn’t stay far behind…..we became really  good friends too and there were times when our husbands used to wonder who were the best of friends – the sons or their moms! J Anyway, ever since our move to India, Abhay has been looking for a best friend  like the one he had in the US…….and so is his mom! J

When you are a twosome…..is there space for another or what happens when your best friend defects and finds another pal more interesting? Richa Jha’s “SuSu Pals” features a situation like this. Illustrated by Alicia Souza, this book is as much a celebration of friendship as it is about finding one's own comfort zone. Rhea and Dia are two best of friends …..whom you would in India colloquially call “Chaddi pals” (and it is literally so!). They do everything together….play, study, eat…even go pee-pee together! (We totally get this….as something like this almost had happened with Abhay and his friend) One day Dia has a new classmate Isha who turns out to be her new neighbour too. The girls befriend Isha together, but it is Dia who hits it off really well with this new friend. So much so, that Dia misses the next day’s play with Rhea. Even at the Dragon-Slayers Picnic, Dia turns up with her new friend who is not so enthused about playing with Rhea. As Rhea watches Dia cozying up to Isha, Rhea vows never to play with Dia again and forms and becomes a lone member of “Dia-is-a-mean-girl club”! Does this friendship story have a happy ending?? This is a delightful coming-of-the-age friendship story with an added twist of diversity in the end ….. albeit reserving the su-su bit only to the original team members! J Just like the last book of Richa Jha’s that we’d read, we love the illustrations and find it hilarious! We even enjoyed scanning through the little dialogue prompts in small print that echoes the probable thoughts running in the readers’ minds!  If you or your little one have ever been through the best friends-turned-enemies-turn best friends again phase, you’d totally relate to "The Su Su pals"! If not, this is a great book to read and explore and is sure to be laughing riot at home…!! J