Little Friends

K-Gr 3—Optimistic Sara and assertive Louisa are best friends. Grouchy Barry lives across the street. Tukel tells three stories that chronicle the development of the three youngsters' friendship through quarrels, games, and decisions. In the first one, after a to-do about a tire swing, the girls invite Barry to join them in walking their dogs. Next, Barry challenges the girls to enter his snow fortress. In the third tale, the youngsters are dismayed when a storm fells their special tree. Louisa and Barry don't know what to do with the stump, but Sara has an idea. She uses it as a seat and has a flood of creative notions, deeming it their thinking place. The friends spend time there often, thinking together. The pacing of the stories is just right, and the graphic-novel design is thoroughly engaging. Teachers can use this book to address characterization, conflict resolution, and personality differences. Students will find that the illustrations and story structure make decoding straightforward. Though the word "little" in the title may be off-putting for some mature second- or third-grade readers, they would be missing out on entertaining stories, an appealing format, and engaging illustrations if they passed over this book. The vocabulary, sentence length, design, and entertainment value make Little Friends a logical next step for developing readers who enjoy Mo Willems's "Elephant & Piggie" stories (Hyperion).—Lindsay Persohn, University of South Florida, Tampa