Customer Reviews

Making New Friends

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Rarely does a children's book combine a charming character, a good story and a geography lesson as successfully as Making New Friends.

Children of any age can relate to the anxiety of moving to a new neighborhood. The character Brownie Big Box reassures and inspires TJ to make new friends and helps him realize that imagination can help overcome the uncertainty of a new situation.

Beautifully illustrated, the book is just the right length to hold a young reader's interest. The "Did you know?" pages at the front and back of the book offer a few simple facts about the locations that Brownie Big Box visits.

As a parent, it's refreshing to find a book that stimulates your child's imagination. The real prize, however, is the lesson he or she will learn about making new friends .

I wouldn't recommend this book. This book does acknowledge that moving can be hard for kids, especially the aspect of leaving your friends and trying to make new ones. However, we found the message to be strange. The child makes friends with a talking moving box who later turns into a toy. The neighborhood children aren't nice and only befriend him because of this cool toy. There are better books. If you only buy one book I recommend The Playdate Kids--Danny is Moving by Annie Thiel, PhD.

It's often difficult for children to move. Because we are such a mobile society, it often means they are also moving to new schools and are making new friends.

TJ's family has moved, and he's feeling sad that he's left his friends and all that is familiar to him. He watches the neighborhood boys playing but doesn't want to join them.

He begins to play with the big brown box that housed his toys during the move and is amazed that it comes to life and begins to talk and play with him. The talking box is in TJ's imagination but it helps him gain the confidence he needs to step out and make new friends.

Making New Friends is a wonderful addition to a child's library, whether they are moving to a new residence or find themselves in new surroundings where they have to meet new people.

The illustrations are attractive and will appeal to children and parents alike. This is a book for parents to read to their children because of all the text. I believe it's appropriate for children 4 to 9.

Armchair Interviews says: If you're going to move and have young children, this book can help with the transition.

We live in a highly mobile society. It's perhaps hardest on the children who are moved from school to school and are repeatedly faced with the necessity of losing old friends and making new ones every time the family relocates. Making New Friends is the story of a young boy named TJ who has just moved into a new residence with his family and is hesitant about going out to meet the kids in his new neighborhood. Then while playing with one of the boxes that his family's possessions had been moved in, TJ is surprised with it comes to life and starts to talk to him. Browny helps TJ to develop the self-confidence to make new friends, and TJ comes to realize that is okay to miss his old friends -- and to remember the good times they shared. Recommended for both school and community library picturebook collections, Making New Friends is brilliantly co-authored by Jacqueline Blumenstock and David Pools at a third grade reading level, while Colleen Madden's gentle illustrations are thoroughly age appropriate for young readers ages 4 to 10.

"Making New Friends" helps a child build self-confidence and make new friends. T. J. like many children is unsure how the children in the new neighborhood will like him. Brownie shows him he'll have no problem making friends. The maps and facts of each state Brownie moves is a wonderful bonus.

This is a simple story that triggers the imagination to go to work for you, where "out of the box" is a good thing.

It's excellently written, wonderfully illustrated and is thought capturing in a way that will enable one to take the concept of using one's imagination to use it in a way that should enable one to jump the hurdle of making new friends. And, who's concept is simple enough that it's adaptable to apply to other hurdles in life.

The balance of this series should be just as great.

I highly recommend this book for children 3 years and up. My son is 3 years old and loves this book!! He wants me to read it to him every night. To my surprise and amazment, from the very first time I read this book to him, he sits and listen to the whole book.

Lynn Marie Hirshman, douglassville, pa