How to Lose All Your Friends
By Nancy Carlson
Why this book?
The best books for kids about making friends and friendship issues
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Browse the best books on friendships as recommended by authors, experts, and creators. Along with notes on why they recommend those books.
Coming Fall 2022: The ability to sort this list by genre (signup here to follow our story as we build a better way to discover books).
By Nancy Carlson
The best books for kids about making friends and friendship issues
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By Willa Cather
This may be the most surprising pick on my list. While Cather’s 1918 novel has been celebrated as a classic of midwestern literature and as an insightful feminist critique (rightly, in both cases), but it is also a book that is obsessed with memory and time. How, if at all, do we preserve memories of the times that shaped us? Does the passage of time diminish memories or give them iconic status? Does writing preserve or distort that which has happened? This is a book that can be read at any age, but the more you think about it, the…
The best American novels that mess with time
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By Hannah Barnaby, Andrew Joyner
The best picture books on space exploration
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By Thomas Mallon
Award-winning novelist Thomas Mallon explores the serendipitous world of Ruth Paine, the Quaker who befriended Lee and Marina Oswald in the fateful months leading up to the assassination. In this fast-paced nonfition read, Mallon takes the reader through the tumultuous nine months before the assassination and then along for the often-bizarre years following in which Paine’s largesse is interpreted and twisted by conspiracy theorists to somehow accuse her of being in the middle of a giant plot against Kennedy.
The best books about who killed JFK
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By Kenneth Grahame
Old fashioned these days perhaps, echoing a very English landscape too, like me sometimes, Wind in The Willows is still an unmissable gem. The tale of the friendship between ratty, mole, and badger, and of course the irrepressible Mr. Toad, shines with a beautiful innocence, but also the pure lyricism of the writing. So producing one of my favorite chapters in all literature – "Piper At The Gates of Dawn." That addresses a particular spiritual element too, when the little animals have a vision of the great God Pan, too powerful for them to remember safely. Which underlines why animals…
The best fantasy novels with themes on animals, nature and the environment
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By Eoin Colfer, Oliver Jeffers
Can imaginary friends count as best friends? Totally. Imaginary Fred is a brilliant riff on imaginary friendship, told from the point of view of the imaginary friend. When imaginary Fred befriends non-imaginary Sam, the two have so much fun that Fred panics he’ll be replaced by a real kid (again!). But when real Sam brings home his new friend real Sammi, Sammi befriends Fred too…and her own imaginary friend Freida becomes Fred’s total B(I)FF! The book is quirky/funny, but really moving too. Everybody gets a best friend.
The best books about best friends
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