Non-Fiction Monday: Friends: True Stories of Extraordinary Animal Friendships by Catherine Thimmesh
unpgd. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, May, 2011. 978-0-547-39010-9. (Purchased.)
I will confess. This one had me at the cover. Then, I went totally gaga when I flipped the book over to check out the back cover. I held the book close to my heart as I continued browsing. So this is a totally objective and unbiased review.
It's gorgeously designed, featuring a couple of watermarked black and white photos bookending pages with black backgrounds, which perfectly show off the absolutely eye-popping full-color portraits of the animal pairs. Poems about the characteristics of friendships float centered, in colored, largish font above a short paragraph in white print that explains how the two unlikely friends met.
Not all the pairings resulted in friendships for life, but each partner gave what the other needed for the time they had.
This is a picture book for all ages really. Read it to the small ones, read it to the tall ones. Make it the center of a display with other must-have animal friendship books in your library like, Koko's Kitten, Tarra and Bella, Owen and Mzee. Use it as a springboard to have a class discussion about friendship. Use it as a writing or poetry prompt. Use it.
Non-Fiction Monday is hosted this week by Shelf-Employed.
