My Best Friend
Lois Kim
Hardcover
(Watermark Publishing, Dec. 7, 2018)
Everyone needs a friend who will stick by them through thick and thin, and in My Best Friend, author-illustrator Lois Kim reminds children that they always have a best friend to cheer them on and help them to be their best. The charmingly illustrated rhymed-verse narrative concludes: My best friend is ME and I am my best friend. My Best Friend was born of Kim's desire to encourage her daughter—and herself&mdashduring times of self-doubt and to give the pre-teen inner strength and confidence as she was bullied in school. "The idea came to me as she confided in me about the 'mean girls' at school," Kim says. "The feelings she shared with me between her tears and sobs vividly reminded me of my own experiences, both as a kid and as an adult. I wanted her to see that loving and relying on herself and being her own best friend will help her through her darkest moments. For me, as a recovering addict, remembering to love myself can mean the difference between life and death. I have to be my own best friend and treat myself with respect." This message of self-confidence is especially important today, as increasing bullying and social media pressure can make children feel isolated and outcast. "In my journey promoting my first book, Mommy Loves You," Kim recalls, "I met strong, accomplished women who also echoed this message—that loving yourself and being your own best friend is something we can all benefit from practicing." As a former inmate at the Women's Community Correctional Center (WCC) in Kailua, Kim knows a thing or two about the necessity of self-confidence in the face of daunting challenges. "While incarcerated, I was in the loneliest place in the world," Kim says. "Writing and illustrating that first book while I was there gave me a voice when I thought silence was my only option. I've reached a new chapter in my life, starting again from the ground up. I face challenges today because of the bad choices I made in the past. It's not easy, but I continue to push forward, despite some closed doors. I know I've been fortunate to get a second chance, but I also have to listen when my inner best friend tells me I'm doing the right things to earn that chance. If I didn't have that confidence, I wouldn't be where I am today." Ever since she was a child, Kim has turned to drawing as a source of comfort. During her incarceration, her passion for art became a lifeline and a way to communicate with her children and send them a deeply felt message: Mommy Loves You, her first book, created in collaboration with Haku Moolelo ("Composed Stories"), a program offered to inmates by the non-profit organization Read to Me International. The project provided her with an outlet to combat her loneliness and to reassure her children that her absence wasn't their fault. In My Best Friend, Kim again combines her gift for art with a message given additional depth by her family's experiences.
O