Hank and Fergus

 By Susin Nielsen-Fernlund nd Louise-Andrée Laliberté

Brutal.  Absolutely brutally bad.

Hank is a kid with a birthmark on his face who has an imaginary dog friend named Fergus.  It's made obvious in the beginning that he has this dog friend because he can't make real friends.  Probably because he gets teased about his birthmark and is embarrassed and then acts out.

 So a new kid moves in next door and tries to be friends with him and Hank gets all defensive and is horrible and mean to him.  So they're both horrible and mean to each other.  Which is usually how these things go down.

Then they make up and give each other presents in the most formulaic and artificial turnaround you could imagine.  See, making friends isn't that hard.  You just aren't trying!
No, I get it.  The moral of the story, that they explain in the last few sentences, is that having a birthmark on your face isn't so bad.  In fact, everyone has something weird going on.  Look at this kid; he's got a scar on his stomach!

This book won the Mr. Christie book award.