Friendshape: An Uplifting Celebration of Friendship

PreS-Gr 2—The reliably inventive Rosenthal and Lichtenheld here reprise their elegant layers of simplicity found in Exclamation Mark (Scholastic, 2013) and Duck! Rabbit! (Chronicle, 2009). Using shapes as personified characters, the text explores axioms about friendship. With expressive eyes and mouths, a digitally colored red rectangle, green triangle, yellow square, and blue circle pose on spreads to illustrate concepts like "Friends make you feel at home." For this, the quartet poses with rectangle as a red carpet, square atop triangle to create a house shape, and circle rolling toward them with a grin. Each axiom in large black print is complemented by the characters' conversations, as when rectangle thanks triangle for his literal support for "Friends are always there for you to lean on." The finale shows them lined up vertically, rectangle-circle-triangle-square, to represent the word love.