By Dan Santat
An imaginary friend gets tired of waiting around to be imagined, so he sails off alone to find the child who needs him.
On a faraway island, imaginary friends are born and wait for a real child to dream them up. One little marshmallow-shaped fellow waits, and waits, and nobody picks him. So he does something no imaginary friend has ever done. He leaves the island, sails across the sea, and walks right into the noisy grown-up world to find his person on his own. For a while he's lonely and a bit lost, small among all the busy people who can't see him. Then a girl named Alice, just as lonely as he is, finds him. The first thing they do together is give him a name: Beekle. Santat's pictures glow against the gray city, and they carry as much of the story as the words do.
If your child has an imaginary friend, or wishes they did, this is a lovely flip: the friend is the one waiting and hoping, and your child gets to wonder what he's thinking while he waits to be dreamed up. The lonely stretch in the middle is real but gentle, and it opens into a friendship warm enough that the ending feels like it was worth the wait. It won the Caldecott Medal for its art, and one look at any page tells you why, so it's a real gift for a child who reads the pictures long before the words.