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Bink & Gollie

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by Kate DiCamillo and Alison McGhee
Candlewick, 2010. 80 pages. Fiction.


Bink and Gollie are friends, though they are very different. Gollie lives in the high rent district, i.e., a well-appointed treehouse. Bink lives at the base of Gollie's tree in a shingled cottage surrounded by flowers and a low rock wall. Gollie is tall, slender, and austere. Bink is short, frazzledy, and enthusiastic. Their adventures together include roller skating to the store where Bink buys an outrageous pair of socks for which Gollie denies her pancakes. They compromise. When Bink gets a goldfish, her "marvelous companion," Gollie feels slighted as well as annoyed that Bink feeds Fred pancakes and take him with them roller skating and even to the movies! In the end, Gollie saves Fred's life, the friends are reconciled, roller skating gives way to ice skating with a delightful final illustration by Tony Fucile, whose pictures perfectly complement the text. Bink & Gollie is a warm delight of a book which should receive serious consideration for the American Library Association's Geisel award for beginning readers.

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