Making Friends (Making Friends, 1)

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Wonderfully expressive illustrations perfectly capture body language and gestures in just a few simple strokes, enabling young readers to understand how the characters are feeling. In a nutshell, my problem with this book is that the plot is messy, and that made it hard for me to get into. Cara pronounces her “cool” for rescuing her father, turned into a squirrel in the hinn’s panic, and Nick is suspended permanently. In 2018, I think *all* literature needs to do better when portraying toxic men like this, and I think children's and YA lit especially needs to be careful how it handles these messages.

Simple text effectively describes emotions, such as the warm glow Sukie experiences when people are nice, or the crinkly sense of embarrassment when her offer of friendship is rejected. Now that she’s in seventh grade, she’s in a new middle school, her friends are in different classes and forming new cliques, and she is totally, completely lost. Graphic novel fans who are also manga readers may be OK with a spasmodic storyline which can be more common in that format.

Danielle's great-aunt Elma passed away and in her will she left instructions saying that the family can sort through my stuff. In that notebook the things she draws comes to life, so when she draws her dream best friend and favorite anime character stuff gets real. Doing so rips a hole in the universe that can only be mended with the Solar Healing Powers of both Danys (a plot point that I expect to come back in another book). Had the author stuck with the central conceit of Dany creating a friend for herself and then dealing with the consequences, I think it would have been a much, much stronger story. I wanted the fact that he says shocking and vile things to be enough to clue her in to the fact that this guy is not okay.

I found myself very confused about what Dany was complaining about, and I was impatient with her self-centeredness. This is an irresistible story about empathy, diversity, and the joy of making friends with people (or vegetables! This is a laugh-out-loud funny romp, following Dany, a seventh grader who’s having difficulty socially – so when she finds a magic sketchbook that brings anything she draws to life, she makes herself a new best friend (as well as bringing her favorite manga character to life). Dany’s father wishes for a lucky lotto ticket, but the paperwork and taxes that come with the windfall are complicated and stressful. The premise of this book is that we feel less and less connected despite all the technology for connecting.

With this newfound magical ability, Dany decides to draw the perfect best friend, Madison, who will make all of her troubles go away. Mary Jackson and Czarnecki's friendship allowed them achieve greatness, such as, sending astronauts to the moon. She wants to keep him around and secret so she carries him in her backpack and keeps him in her locker. However, Dany soon learns that even if you tailor-make your own BFF, how you treat them still matters.

Even if you have tried many similar friendship books for kids, this story about little Melissa will surely be an excellent addition to a toolkit! This beautiful and informative book is perfect for children who have ever felt 'different' or out of place. Having finished and loved Making Friends, I hurried out to get the sequel, Back to the Drawing Board.

This book targets people who feel like their social life is on hold because they either are too shy or don’t really connect. Improve your Social Skills has many similarities to The Social Skills Guidebook and it covers similar topics. Soon she begins to use the sketchbook and finds that whatever she draws in the sketchbook "comes to life.

If The Unwritten Rules of Friendship is my top pick for parents who want to help their young children, this book is the top pick for parents who want to help their teens and young adults.I will say that Gudsnuk does attempt to address the bullying and low self esteem that Danny experiences, but so much of it is handled in a joking manner that the overall affect is lost. When she gets involved with the Air Transport Auxiliary, she realises it may be more than she bargained for. Turns out, bad boys aren’t as appealing in real life as they are in fiction and Prince Neptune is much less “misunderstood” than Dany had fantasized. Recasting Dog Man and his feline ward, Li’l Petey, as costumed superheroes, Pilkey looks East of Eden in this follow-up to Tale of Two Kitties (2017).