How to Be a Friend: A Guide to Making Friends and Keeping Them

by Laurie Krasny Brown, Marc Brown (Illustrations)

Fun dinosaur characters teach young children all about friendship—the value of friends, how to make friends, and how to be a good friend.

With playful full-color illustrations, Laurie Krasny Brown and Marc Brown help kids cope with everyday social situations and learn:
★ Who can be your friend.
★ How to show someone you would like to be friends.
★ How to handle bosses and bullies.
★ The best ways to be a friend and ways not to be a friend.
★ Ways to settle an argument with a friend.

Genres: Friendship, Picture Books, Childrens, Nonfiction, Emotion, Parenting, Education

32 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

Reviews

[Shelley Diamond · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was better than I expected. The odd cover illustration led me to believe this book would be goofy and simplistic but no, it's serious and covers a lot of complex material, including different ways to play with a friend, what to do if you feel left out or shy, ways to lose a friend, how to make-up after an argument, and how to deal with bullies. I was impressed how much could be expressed in 32 pages.

[Aneesa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Covers a lot of good ground, but I had to make a few edits. You are not 'friends' with adult neighbors.

[Terri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Marc Brown is a renowned author of a variety of children's books. It was nice to see it shared authorship with his wife. This book was a good guide for my reading adventures with my Grand daughter's second-grade class. The pictures were colorful although the puce green kid's faces were a little too strange. Overall the message was good.

[Dianne J. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Age of readership: Ages 4-8

Genre: Picture Book

Diversity: Friendship, communication and dealing with conflicts

Illustrations: Text interspersed with word clouds showing conversations between cartoon characters drawn by Marc Brown – author of the Berenstain Bears series.

My response to the book: This book shows children that you can make friends with most anybody, how to play fair, help friends, cheer them up, keep secrets, combat shyness and how to deal with bullies, as well as solve conflicts among friends. There is a plan for children to use near the end of the book that explains in nine steps how to talk out an argument.

Curricular/Programming connections: Use in a group discussion with child about social relationships. Familiar drawings of Marc Brown appeal to K-3 graders.

[Monica Rodriguez · Rating 5 out of 5]

(How-to book)

Brown, Laurie & Brown, Marc. How To Be a Friend (1998). This 30-page picture book teaches children how to be a friend. It includes ten chapters that talk about what friends are and who can be a friend. Some chapters talk about feelings and different ways to be a friend or how not to be a friend. An important topic of bosses and bullies is also talked about in this book. Real-life problems like divorce and self-esteem are also discussed in this book. Children will understand these important topics because it is written at their level and shows illustrations that match the context. The illustrations are kid friendly because the illustrator used dinosaurs as the characters in this book. There wasn’t a story plot in this book but it was easy to follow because it was divided into chapters. By reading this book children will be introduced to possibly their first table of contents, chapter headings, and air bubbles. At the end of this book, there is a chapter about talking out an argument and it offers a set-by-set process on how to talk out an argument. This how-to book is a great tool for teachers, parents, or any adult to use for an introduction about friendship to children. Target audience: ages 6-8

[Ayleen Cabrera · Rating 4 out of 5]

How to be a Friend is a picture-book about two dinosaurs and what it means to be a friend. It talks about ways to be a friend, who can be your friend, being friendly, what it means when you're feeling shy, and situations when arguments happen between friends. It illustrates situations that happen in school and relates to real life, as well as emotions. How to deal with shyness and bullies. This book helps the reader identify the ways they can be a friend and how to not to be a friend to someone. After reading this book, it would be very easy for the readers to connect and relate it to their life. This book can fit well into young or older kids.

[Madison Franklin]

Finding friends can be hard, especially in a new school and/or new classroom. I would really like to read this book the first couple days of class. It shows how the character starts conversation with other people around and how he asks others to play. The main character makes friends and notices that they are all different and that okay. It also shows that it's okay to play by yourself but sometimes there are games that require another person or it can be fin to play with others. I really liked this source and hope to use it one day.

[Rebecca · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was on multiple different topics like, bullying, sharing and others too. It had a ton of pictures in the book so children who can’t read yet would be able to follow along and understand because they had pictures to look at the whole time. I would recommend this book to any family or classroom that has younger children because of all the pictures they would understand and love to learn more about these situations. The only downside about this book is that some of the stuff they talk about in this book might be confusing to the child so you might need to explain it better in words they would get. This book would be great for a bedtime story because it’s not scary. Leaves on a good note and will have the child thinking about the lesson after enjoying the story. It’s a win win situation. I liked this book, but it was quite long of a child’s book.

[Makayla Davis · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book explores how to choose the right friends, how to avoid friendship's dangers, and how to coexist with friends in both good and difficult times. I think this book is extremely beneficial for young children to read. This book educates you on all of the ups and downs of friendship and essentially helps you navigate through those times. I would absolutely have my students read this book to help establish friend making strategies.

[Christina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this to be a good resource for kids. Has information on how to resolve an argument which was great. Had good examples of how friendships are not always smooth sailing and what to to when they don’t.

[Alicia Steagall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent!! Perfect book to read to a child about learning to be a good friend! Very much important book for a child!

[Molly · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is a LOT to this book. It gives tons of suggestions on being a friend, not being a friend, bullies, arguments, etc.

[Ava Hubble · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very simple book that teaches students how to be a friend. I feel like this is never taught but it should be and this book does a great job of that.

[Christina Cabezas · Rating 4 out of 5]

>Title: How to be a Friend: A Guide to Making Friends and Keeping Them
Author: Laurie Krasny Brown and Marc Brown
Genre: How-to-book, picture book
Theme(s): Friendship
Opening line/sentence:
There are times when it feels good to be by yourself, enjoying your own company.

Brief Book Summary:
This creative take on a how-to book instructs young children on how they can be a friend. Included are specific sections, such as Who Can Be Your Friend?, Ways to Be a Friend, Feeling Shy, Arguments, and Being Friendly. The text is paired with detailed illustrations/scenes that kids can look to as examples.

Professional Recommendation/Review #1:
Dianne Ochiltree (Children's Literature)
Subtitled "A Guide to Making Friends and Keeping Them", this useful title features the wise dinosaurs from the highly acclaimed "Dino Life Guides for Families" series. It addresses various issues surrounding friendship that can help children, as well as their parents and teachers, develop good relationship skills. The book begins by explaining why we all need friendship, where to find friends, and how to be a good friend. The text emphasizes real-life emotions and situations as our dino-buddies experience the ups and downs of friendship. It also deals with a host of related difficulties--such as shyness and bullies--and offers sound advice on conflict resolution techniques. Marc Brown's full color illustrations nearly bounce off the page. Even the end papers feature funny and true thoughts on ways to be or NOT to be a friend that were contributed by a real-life third grade class. A panel of experts from education and psychology reviewed the text, and it would be a good addition to library, school or home bookshelves. 1998, Little Brown, $14.95. Ages 7 to 10.
(PUBLISHER: Little Brown (Boston:), PUBLISHED: c1998.)

Professional Recommendation/Review #2:
(2) K-3 This helpful guide identifies what makes someone your friend, ways to be a friend, and, importantly, ways not to be a friend. As always, dialogue balloons personalize, enrich, and add humor to the main text. The book will be useful to parents, teachers, and other caregivers of young children--on a daily, if not hourly, basis.

Response to Two Professional Reviews:
As I was reading, I wondered how accurate the advice/tips were that the book was detailing to children, which is why I find it interesting that one review says a panel of experts from education and psychology reviewed the text. I also find the information true and it can certainly be helpful to children, especially with the colorful and detailed illustrations that go along with the text. I think that students, teachers, and parents will all definitely benefit from reading this book.

Evaluation of Literary Elements:
Overall, I found this book to be very creative and informative for me, and I am certain that it would be for younger children as well. The Table of Contents at the beginning of the book is helpful, and the various sections help break and divide the information. The little scenes of colorful illustrations on each page that offer examples are extremely helpful, and the section titled "How Not to be a Friend" is also useful in providing some non-examples for children.

Consideration of Instructional Application:
This book can be used as a lesson itself for younger children. After reading, students can have a discussion about how the book relates to their life, and how they can put the lessons into practice in their own lives. This book would post a bit difficult as a read aloud, because of the many dialogue balloons, so might be better if students had individual copies, or was read a loud as a big book. This can also be a lesson for older students as well, with an addition: students will write their own "how-to" book about a particular life skill (sharing, controlling anger, etc).

[Bridget Allebach]

Title: How to Be a Friend
Author: Laurie Krasney Brown
Illustrator: Marc Brown
Genre: How-to Book
Theme(s): Friendship, Acceptance
Opening line/sentence: “There are times when it feels good to be by yourself, enjoying your own company.”
Brief Book Summary: This book provides the basic instructions and guide for children on how to be a good friend, what to do and what to avoid. From approaching a new person to working out arguments with existing friends it includes nearly everything you need to know.
Professional Recommendation/Review #1: (2) K-3 This helpful guide identifies what makes someone your friend, ways to be a friend, and, importantly, ways not to be a friend. As always, dialogue balloons personalize, enrich, and add humor to the main text. The book will be useful to parents, teachers, and other caregivers of young children--on a daily, if not hourly, basis. (Horn Book)
Professional Recommendation/Review #2: From the authors of Dinosaurs Die and What's the Big Secret?, here's a very practical resource about the ins and outs of friendship. Ink drawings washed with bright colors provide lively scenes of dressed, humanoid dinosaurs (or, perhaps, people with green skin and tails) learning the ins and outs of friendship. Topics include feeling shy, approaching others in a friendly way, dealing with bossy kids and bullies, talking through arguments, and making up after a quarrel. While the authors are presenting their sound advice, the cartoon-like characters are talking too, through speech balloons that make the same points in more accessible ways and express the characters' feelings clearly. Parents and primary-grade teachers looking for materials on friendship will find this a good complement to the many picture books about friends. (CLCD, Carolyn Phelan, Booklist)
Response to Two Professional Reviews: I agree that this is a great addition to any classroom environment. It gives students’ a great start to what makes a good friend and what makes a not so good friend. The colorful illustrations add to the story by making it uplifting and encouraging for students to behave a certain way with peers. I did not like however that the review mentioned it as a compliment. I believe this book could be a great tool on its own for younger students, perhaps pre-k or kindergarten to understand the basics of friendship.
Evaluation of Literary Elements: The first thing that caught my eye about this book is the animated and vibrant illustrations. The fun, bright colors engage the students quickly and keep their attention throughout the book. This wonderful book gives students the important lesson of what to do and what not to do in order to make meaningful, lasting friendships. The plot of the story moves from being alone, to making friends, how to deal with mean friends, and even making up with them.
Consideration of Instructional Application: It is important for students to understand that in order to be a good friend they should learn to compliment. A class discussion about what a compliment is is and how students feel when they receive a compliment is important for students to understand the importance of being a good friend. Later students will be instructed to write down a compliment they have received or given and tell the class about it. These compliments will then be stapled into a circle and made into a link chain to be hung in the classroom as a strong reminder of the importance of friendship.

[Haley · Rating 4 out of 5]

4/5 stars
Pre K-3rd grade
Nonfiction informational picture book
I really enjoyed this book and I think that it could be easily incorporated into the classroom! It gives important information on how to be a good friend, make friends, and solve conflicts. This book would be a great book to let kids understand how to be a good friend and what they can do to determine if they are being a good friend.

[Catherine McAna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Goodreads #4

Summary: This book is about how to make friends. It gives tips on how to keep friends, deal with bullies, making up after arguments, etc. There is not one central character. Instead, the author uses different characters or groups of friends to show that different people can make different friends anywhere. The characters interact through conversation bubbles which illustrate the tips given. However, there is no plot line in the book.

Theme: A theme of this book would be friendship. The whole book is a guide to making friendships to keep. One example of creating a friendship is sharing your toys, inviting them to play with you, and listening to your friends and comforting them when they need it. There are also examples how to break friendships, by insulting them, hurting them, and ignoring them.

Personal Response: I like this book as a teaching book for young ages or an intervention book for children who struggle. When I was younger, it was hard sometimes to make friends and keep them because friends can change throughout the years. My friends sometimes moved away or switched schools, so I would have to make new friends and try to keep a long distance friendship going (which was hard at such a young age). It also refers to bullying and there is a time in everyone's life, including mine, where they were bullied and had to deal with it. The book is also illustrated by Marc Brown, the author of Arthur. I loved Arthur and seeing familiar drawings made the book more fun to read.

Recommendation: This book is a "How to" book for children. It is easy for them to follow and it teaches them what is expected of them to be social. If a child was having trouble making friends, this book could help him or her socialize more. There are also headings at the top of the pages and a table of contents which introduces them into where they can find certain topics. The pictures and comic aspect of the book help illustrate what making a friend looks like. However, the pictures and text kind of make the pages overwhelming.

[Maribeth Tomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Picture Book Project

Picture Book Soak: One you can't wait to use with students

This book will entice students because it gives many examples of good friend behavior and bad friend behavior as well as solutions to any problems that may arise between friends.

The characters of this book remind me of the children's cartoon show "Arthur," except all of these characters are dinosaurs. The book is very colorful and has many different dinosaur characters. It isn't like a regular book where there is a picture that depicts the text from that page. This book is kind of like a comic strip where there are many smaller pictures with text bubbles above them. The dinosaurs are all different shades of green and the illustrator uses many different and bright colors for everything else. There is always a lot going on in every page and each page is filled with advice.

I liked this book because it is very helpful in discussing what a good friend is versus a bad friend. I like that it gives examples of each and solutions to different problems that may arise between friends. The artwork is very bright and this book is fun, but very educational/informational at the same time. Every child should be able to relate to some scenario in this book.

This book can be used to teach about friendship. What does a good friend look like? What does a bad friend look like? What can you do if a certain situation arises? The pictures also helps students to visualize what a situation may look like if they have never been in that particular one. This book can teach good citizenship.

[Kristin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book summary: This is a cute book about how to be a friend. It has parts including: Me, Myself, and I. Who Can Be Your Friend? Ways to Be a Friend. Joining in the Fun. Feeling Shy. Ways Not to Be a Friend. Bosses and Bullies. Making Up with a Friend. Talking Out an Argument. and Being Friendly. This book has lots of pictures and shows scenarios and examples with these pictures and conversations between people.
Grade level: K-4
Appropriate classroom use: This is a gentle friendly guide on how students could act. We could do learning stations/centers where the students can be with partners or in a group and go over certain scenarios and see if they agree with what happened, if they would do anything different and what they learned.
Indv. students who may benefit: Students that want to learn more about how to treat people and how to act in certain situations, what is right and what is wrong.
Small group use: Literature circles could be used to discuss what is happening in the book and the students can also act out different scenarios and have their classmates pick out what was the right way to handle the situation and which was the wrong way.
Whole class use: I would like to use this as a whole class read, and involve the students when reading it. Maybe read it under the overboard camera and have the students read parts with me.
Related books: Works by Marc Brown such as Arthur (same type of drawings of characters), or other Laurie Krasny books, and Dino Life Guides for Families.
Multimedia connections: Paperback, and School/Library Binding.

[Mandy Scheuren]

How to Be a Friend is a fantastic story for all young children. It may not be a book children would pick up to read on their own however would make a great re-aloud story. The book has a table of contents which consist of the following: Me, Myself and I; Who Can Be Your Friend?; Ways to Be a Friend; Joining in the Fun; Feeling Shy; Ways Not to Be a Friend; Bosses and Bullies; Making Up with a Friend; Talking Out an Argument; and Being Friendly. As you can see the table of contents covers topics every child should be acquainted with. There is little text; most of the book contains each character’s caption in a “bubble” as if they are truly talking with one another. A great way to get children going the right direction in treating everyone equal!

[Sara Bland · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a wonderful little book to teach young students how to be a friend. This book is not only about learning how to make friends, but also what it means to be a good friend. I think this is a very important concept that sometimes gets brushed over because we assume that children already know how to be good friends once they've made friends. The pictures are very bright and playful which are interesting to students. This would be a good read aloud for pre-k and kindergarten students. The concept is great for the younger students, but the text is too complex for a beginning reader, I personally think. I would definitely recommend this book to any young student.

[Christine Hou · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very good book for kindergarten kids and kids from 1st to 4rd grade! It uses illustrations and picture format to tell children some moral reasons that how to make a friend. I like the way it displays and demonstrates. It uses colorful speech bubbles to represent the daily situation that kids will encounter when they make friends. Another creative thing is that the end papers. In the front, it uses illustration with kids' heads to tell Ways to be a friend. In the back, it uses the same way to show Ways not to be a friend.

[Ollie Skyba · Rating 5 out of 5]

Мы брали в библиотеке, но я предпочла бы подобное издание иметь всегда под рукой. Возможно, разве что с иными персонажами - динозаврики (ящерки?) не очень нам нравятся.
Но сюжетно - книга замечательная, в виде мини-комикса в ней обыгрывается масса ситуаций, в которые попадают дети, только начинающие свою социализацию. Первые дни в детском саду или школе, новые друзья на детской площадке, конфликты между ровесниками и старшими. Поднимается и проблема буллинга.
Рекомендую, - и если встретите такие книги на русском, порекомендуйте мне.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

From the Dino Life Guides for Families series, How To Be a Friend uses cartoon-style drawings to teach the ins and outs of friendship. Sections include, "Ways to be a Friend," "Feeling Shy," "Bosses and Bullies," and "Ways Not to be a Friend." Real-life social situations are presented through whimsical cartoons. Not a good read-aloud book due to cartoon-characters speaking in word bubbles, but could possibly work for a reader's theater-- acting out the parts.

[Xin Luan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Friend is very important in everyone's life. Everyone have lots of friends, but not everyone understand how to be a friends. For some children, it is very hard to make friends with others because they worry about they might be rejected. This book can help children resolve many problems about making friends. In this book, we can find the answers about "why we need friends?""how to be a friends?""How to make new friends?"and so on. It is helpful to teach students to get alone with others.

[Angie Martinez · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have used this book for a couple of lesson plans. It gives good ways to be a friend and bad ways. It is simple and goes straight to the point. Students can relate to this book because it gives characteristics of their peers. They can reflect and assess how they are as a friend. Teachers can use this book as a lesson on how to be a better friend. I would recommend students under 2nd grade to read this book. It has conversation bubbles so kids can read and relate to it.

[Abbie c Shannon]

BADBOOK
Gave it a go with my daughter's terrible

[Khadija Bensaadoun · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun book that describes the importance of friendship and how to be a good friend. This book can be read when there is conflict among classmates, or if a there is bullying happening. As a group we would read the book and discuss ways of how to be a good friend and how to handle difficult friendship situations.

[Tracy · Rating 4 out of 5]

We checked this out from the library, and now I will look to purchase the book. It gives some great forthright and clear advice for developing and maintaining friendships. While I'm not fond of the conversation bubble format for setting up examples, that's more of a personal preference thing; it was a great way to give examples...and my kids like the conversation bubbles far more than I do.

[D'artagnan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love it when a kids book come out that's really just as applicable to adults, and this is one. The art of friendship initiation and maintenance affects our lives so deeply, but is a point of frustration for so many people young and old, this book is right on time.