Best Frints in the Whole Universe

On Planet Boborp, “teef are long and tempers are short,” yet two lookalike pink and purple aliens “have been best frints since they were little blobbies.” Portis (Not a Box) pictures the frints, Omek and Yelfred, as bubblegum-tinted spheres with otterlike tails, spindly limbs, and prehensile antennae. The frints’ volatility mirrors Earthling rivalries, despite a winking refrain that we have no such drama “here on planet Earth.” When Yelfred receives a spossip (spaceship) for his blurfday, Omek takes it for a spin and schmackles it to pieces. Yelfred bites Omek’s tail off (“Luckily, on Boborp, tails grow back”) and calls him a “double-dirt bleebo.” After cooling down, they fix the vehicle with “taypo” and a “sturpler,” restoring their frintship. Portis tinkers gleefully with familiar language and provides a Boborpian glossary on the endpapers, just in case. Her dot-matrix layers of retro color add dimension to the simple shapes and close-up images, and her flamboyant misspellings and soundalike words let beginning readers in on the sly jokes while crafting an all-too-knowing portrait of what frintship often looks like. Ages 4–7. Agent: Deborah Warren, East West Literary. (July)