My Best Friend, Bob

Ripper burst onto the scene by winning the Macmillan Prize for Children’s Picture Book Illustration a couple of years ago. She entered two picture books for this important national competition for art students, and the judges felt that either could have won in its own right. The first, Little Brown Bush Rat, was published last year. My Best Friend, Bob (originally titled ‘Brian and Bob’) is the other. The two guinea pigs while away their days in the pet shop by playing games such as ‘I Spy’ (‘Brian was terribly good at I Spy and almost always won with clever words like “budgerigar” and “dog food”’). Their idyll is shattered when Bob is whisked from the cage and bought by a customer. The disconsolate Brian pines badly until he too is suddenly bundled into a cardboard box. Just as he feels things couldn’t get much worse, he discovers that he has been bought by the grandfather of Bob’s new owner – as a present for his grandson. The ensuing happy reunion concludes a book whose success is built on the totally convincing visual characterisation of the animals. Their facial expressions, gesture and movement are all spot on. The image of the dejected Brian, lying in his food bowl, idly flicking a peanut in the air, is a particular delight.