Mac & Cheese: A Friendship Story That Celebrates Being Different

Right from the get-go it’s clear that Mac—a geeky, glasses-wearing noodle—and Cheese, a squat hunk of cheese with a snaggletooth, are meant to share the same camaraderie as Frog and Toad and George and Martha, the friends created, respectively, by the book’s dedicatees, Arnold Lobel and James Marshall. In the first of three episodes, Cheese asks Mac some basic questions (“What is the second letter of the alphabet?”) and showers Mac with praise when he knows the answers: “You have a big, big brain.” (Large orange letters make Cheese’s enthusiasm clear.) Cheese, meanwhile, is an artist who paints whatever he likes: oranges that aren’t orange, oranges that aren’t round, and blobby blobs. “Am I the big red blob?” Mac asks. “No, Mac. You are the yellow smudge. Because you are the brightest of all.” Their friendship is a shade snarkier than those of their predecessors (“Oh, no, not them!” Cheese jeers, as they spot P.B. and Jay playing catch in the distance), but their mutual devotion and Proimos’s (Waddle! Waddle!) dopey artwork should win this odd couple even more friends. Ages 4–7. Agent: Joanna Volpe, New Leaf Literary & Media. (Nov.)