Review by Ian Keogh

Due to an accident Toby has become king of the pixie community hidden in his back garden. These aren’t the traditional elegant looking creatures, but as designed by Andreas Schuster they’re bizarre little beings, each differing from all the remainder. Yes, they can do magic, but more often than not it goes wrong, with hearing a frequent problem. Toby saying he wanted school to be really nice results instead in an invasion of mice, and he has to be precise. A lesson learned is that it’s no good assuming everything’s going to be okay just because he’s checked the goods aren’t cursed. He should also have checked whether they’re ultra-cursed.

The Best Frenemies title comes about from Toby’s school nemesis Steph also finding out about Toby’s new status. She constantly teases him at school, and as the book starts Toby’s worst fear is that she’ll find about the pixies and somehow weaponise it for new insults. Well, she does discover his secret, but one of the surprises delivered here is that she considers it cool. Toby’s still wary of her, but she’s now part of the adventures along with his best mate Mo.

Pixies are a contrary bunch, and despite having magic at their disposal, none are the smartest. Toby might save himself a lot of problems by having them use their magic to increase their intelligence, but would they then be as much fun? James Turner continues to take an absurdist view of their activities, with Toadflax a raging force of nature. She’s mischievous, fickle and annoying as well as being extremely smelly. Turner knows his young audience well, so there are plenty of jokes about mess, bogies, farts and other such matters, but he’ll also occasionally surprise with some mild social satire, such as the pixies being exploited by a bank.

Schuster’s cartooning delivers the strip’s anarchic nature with well developed personalities, which is quite the achievement considering the basic forms the pixies have.

It’s a surprise, but Toby and the Pixies benefits from having Steph as a friend rather than an enemy as she was in Worst King Ever! She remains caustic and a tease, but a sequence near the end reveals what she really feels.

There was some uncertainty about the first volume, but the silliness wins through here as both creators now know the cast.