Review of “The 3 Bulls” by Sean Martin, Illustrated by Anthony Richichi

Score: 94/100 (9.4 out of 10)

You never know when you might meet your next best friend!
Sometimes, one kind, altruistic act can turn into a lifetime of happiness and experiences!

The 3 Bulls is a heartwarming, cheerful, and positive story about friendship!

Darius is the new kid in town. Like a fish out of water, he is unfamiliar with the new surroundings and environment. Aside from the immediate family that made the trip with him, he is friendless, fatherless, and lonely. He visits a playground and sits alone on a “Buddy” bench.

Some of the kids consider what to make of him (and what to do about him). Two of the boys, Liam and Noah (likely named after the author's real-life children), decide to go up to Darius and offer to be friends!

Although a bit predictable and what you'd expect in a children's book, it's nonetheless a beautiful and precious moment! It's the way that we'd all want our children to treat other people, especially people who are feeling sad, lost, and/or lonely.

What's incredible is that this little act of kindness blossoms into a lifelong friendship for all three of them! They call themselves the “Three Bulls” as they all want to play for the Bulls someday. Now, at first we thought this meant the Chicago Bulls NBA team, but this turned out to be the local high school team. According to newspaper cutouts, it appears they did get to live their dreams of playing for the Bulls together!

While basketball is a big part of their activities as friends, they also do other things together like eating, kayaking, playing Frisbee with a dog, triple-dating to prom, and going to the beach.

As they get older, they graduate together, get married, play golf, have picnics and barbecues, and—as older men—even go fishing together.

What started off as a simple, straightforward children's story about friendship becomes something much deeper and more profound.

We have to give props to the book's illustrator, Anthony Richichi, our previous Artist of the Year. This is one of his best jobs so far, particularly portraying people. Two panels/pages especially impressed us:

The collection of photographs on page 15 and the collage on page 19. WOW!
The amount of effort that must have took can't be understated!

And those two pages accomplished so much in showing the passage of time, the numerous different experiences the three friends had, and the depth of their bond. Congratulations to Sean Martin and Anthony Richichi in achieving all of that!

Check it out on Amazon!