“From the day they’d met, and every day since, it had always been Bobby and Eddie—Eddie and Bobby,” begins this sweet book about a first crush. Bobby and Eddie do everything together, and now, Bobby wants to create a special Valentine’s card for Eddie, a card “as big as Bobby’s heart felt when they were together.” Bobby hopes that Eddie wants what he does: to live together someday in a castle as a prince and knight.
Bobby works hard with a variety of craft supplies, but still worries that Eddie won’t like the card, or that it will scare him away. Clinging to the hope that Eddie will like it, Bobby brings the giant, unwieldy card to school—and finds that Eddie has made him a similar oversized card. The boys grin happily at each other, and the final page shows them as prince and knight, riding a dragon together into the sky.
There have been a few other picture books about two-boy crushes before, although From Archie to Zack is problematic, as I explain in my review, and Jerome By Heart involves a boy struggling against his parents’ disapproval of his crush, a storyline that may not always feel relevant, especially if adults are supportive enough to be reading their young ones a story about a two-boy crush in the first place. Bobby and the Big Valentine, in contrast, is pure joy, with the only question being the universal one of whether the crush is requited. In its joy, it is similar to When We Love Someone We Sing to Them/Cuando Amamos Cantamos, though Bobby is more focused on the protagonist himself; no adults are portrayed. When We Love Someone also showcases a father’s support (and celebrates Mexican cultural traditions). Both approaches are valuable, and it is wonderful to see a growing number of stories about early queer crushes.
There are definite parallels, too, between Bobby’s story and Charlotte Sullivan Wild’s 2021 Stonewall Award-winning Love, Violet, a Valentine’s Day tale that focuses on a girl with a crush on another girl. I’m glad to see queer boys getting a similar story for themselves, and I can easily see these two books used as part of a Valentine’s Day reading collection.
Bobby is White and Eddie Black.
