Review
My Best Friend is a Butternut Squash
- Heather Smith
- Tundra Books, 2026
Heather Smith’s newest picture book is a delight!
As the title states, Alex’s best friend is a butternut squash. Alex engages in fantastic creative play with the squash for reasons that become clear as the story develops. When Alex meets Trudy, whose best friend was an alarm clock, the squash becomes a vector for friendship and even better play. It’s a highly identifiable situation for many preschoolers and kindergartners. In a school setting, the book could easily provide a foundation for a lesson in emotional intelligence and social emotional learning.
The written text is beautifully supported by Kass Reich’s bright, chunky illustrations. The beautiful are rich with texture and detail, but for me it’s the characters’ facial expressions that stand out — particularly those of the butternut squash. These are illustrations to explore and linger over.
My Best Friend Is a Butternut Squash is a must purchase for daycare and elementary libraries and is sure to become a beloved book in family libraries as well. Heather Smith is an award-winning author of picture books as well as middle-grade and YA fiction, so this book should also appear in public and community libraries.
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