EVIE AND MARGIE

Evie and Margie are best friends; they do everything together, even dreaming of becoming actors. When tryouts for the class play are announced, they both want the lead role of Cinderella. Margie can cry real tears for the crying scene by thinking about bad things, but Evie can’t squeeze out one teardrop. She practices until she becomes exasperated, pretending terrible things happen to her parents, dog, and pet fish. At the tryouts, Evie is chosen as Margie’s understudy—and a tree in the forest that says, “Whoosh!” Naturally the day of the performance, Margie has a bad cold so Evie gets to be Cinderella and cries real tears because, among other things, jealousy feels so horrible. Waber has given an original twist to the familiar theme of the test of friendship. His typical illustrations feature hippos as the characters, though the girls appear as a cross between Arthur’s sister D.W. and the animals. Fans of Lyle might wonder why with tears as the motif, Waber didn’t go for the innuendo and make the characters crocodiles? (Picture book. 4-8)