“Friendships, just like relationships with parents and siblings, are never simple.”—excerpted from: Friends and Frenemies, by Jennifer Castle & Deborah Reber
No one will argue the fact that friendships can make life better. However, with this benefit comes the reality: Navigating friendships is complicated, and at times, fraught with high and low points. To maintain friendships, it takes effort to avoid some of the pitfalls and troubles that can visit even the best of friends.
Navigating Friendships for Tweens
This guide covers the many dynamics of friendship. Each section offers a short fictional story about a specific aspect of friendship encountered. Readers learn to respond to each scenario by identifying and exploring each friendship issue.
Everything you ever wanted to know about the topic of friendship, but were afraid to ask. Information and advice is provided by experts, but also by tweens themselves and mentor teens (older teens).
Friendships add joy to our lives. Everything is more fun when shared with friends. However, making friends does not come easy for everyone.
Friendship Joy
This book guides kids how to break the ice when meeting new potential friends and offers real-life scenarios that help kids practice friendship skills.
An interesting look at real friendships between J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. Also the late Kobe Bryant and Lionel Messi and others.
Sometimes even when we put forth our best efforts to hold on to a friendship, things can crop up that puts a friendship in jeopardy.
Friendship Challenges
In this humorous collection of 23 poems, poet Douglas Florian explores both the ups and downs of friendship.
Offers guidance how to handle being bullied by a friend or group of friends.
Both friendship joy and challenges are explored in the following graphic novels.
Both Friendship Joy and Challenges
Olive, a fifth grader, is left out of performing in her school variety show. Yet, all of her friends have already formed their performing groups. Find out how Olive resolves her feelings of exclusion.
Jordan is an African-American artistic seventh-grader who is sent to a private school with only a handful of minority kids. At its core, Jordan’s story is about navigating two different worlds of friends, which includes established friends and friends at his new school. Throughout the story, Jordan, his friends, and some teachers form impressions of each other based on misguided assumptions and biases. This well-crafted graphic novel was the first in the graphic novel genre to win the Newbery Award for excellence in children’s literature.
What happens when your best friend joins a group of popular girls? This is the situation Shannon finds herself in when her friend Adrianne befriends the most popular girl in their class.
Can two people that are so different get along with each other? Christine and Moon are next door neighbors who become the best of friends. Not only do they share their interests with each other, but their deepest secrets as well.