Friends

Enemy Pie and Recess Queen are books which encourage children to try being nice to others who they think they don’t like. Each teacher will have to decide if these books are appropriate for his or her class. Recess Queen (2002) by Alexis O’Neill and Laura Huliska-Beith is the story of a class bully and how she is befriended by a new girl. Mean Jean is used to bossing the other children around, but Katie Sue doesn’t know about Mean Jean’s reputation. When Katie Sue invites Mean Jean to jump rope with her, she changes how others see Mean Jean.

In Enemy Pie (2002), by Derek Munson. a boy tells his dad he doesn’t like the new boy in the neighborhood. Dad suggests an Enemy Pie. Part of the Enemy Pie plan is to be nice to the new boy, so that he will eat the pie. While playing together, the two boys find they like each other. Turns out the Enemy Pie was really a Friendship Pie.

There are many threes and young fours who may not get the meaning of these books, but for older preschool and kindergarten children they are just right to start a discussion about getting to know others before deciding to you don’t like someone. Teachers might want to share a personal story about friendships with people they thought they wouldn’t like. You may even want to make Friendship Cookies with the class. Find out what kinds of things the children think would make a good Friendship Cookie. If the recipe is simple enough, you could make it each time you have a new child join your class.

For younger, as well as older children, the book Friends by Rob Lewis is more direct. Oscar doesn’t think any of the other rabbits would make good friends, but once he tried doing things they liked to do, he found they were all good friends and happy to do what he wanted to do- go swimming. A good book to open a discussion about how to make friends. Children could come up with some ideas of things friends might want to do together. They might also want to make a drawing of the things they like to do such as play outside, build with blocks. If you graph or chart this, children may find there are many others who like to do the same thing as they do.p>