Libros sobre la amistad

(En inglés)

Children’s Books That Support Friendship and Problem Solving

[music]

Dawn: We are here at the library. Hi, Blythe! Blythe Summers: Hi!

Kristin: Hi, Blythe!

Blythe: Thanks so much for being here.

Kristin: Look at this. This looks amazing. What have you brought?

Blythe: So, I've got books here about making friends, about getting along, and about solving problems.

Kristin: Excellent. Oh, right? Right what we're talking about.

Blythe: So, this is "Fox Makes Friends." Fox doesn't understand quite how to make friends. So, he goes outside and starts trying to build a friend out of the things he finds outside. And some other animals start to join in and help them. And they're not making a friend; it's not coming to life. Finally, Mom comes along and says, "Look at all these other animals that have come to help you. You've been making friends all along." [laughter]

Kristin: I like it – a little twist of the words there.

lythe: Yes, the idea that we make friends by learning how to cooperate and play with one another.

Dawn: Yes.

Kristin: That's great.

Blythe: "This is Join In and Play" and "Talk and Work It Out," just two of the titles from the "Learning to Get Along" series. These are books that particularly target issues of joining in and playing with a group, inviting others to play, making friends, and how to talk out a problem when something goes wrong.

Kristin: I love this series. I don't know if you've seen it. It's a great series for kids who have some kind of more specific social challenges. These are really great teaching tools for that – love those.

Blythe: These next one is "Gossie and Gerti." It's also bilingual. This sweet little book is great for toddlers. Gossie and Gerti are best friends, even when Gossie gets a little bit bossy. She even learns during the course of the story how to follow Gertie some of the time as well. Great book if you've got mixed ages in your classroom.

Kristin: Family child care.

Blythe: Absolutely. Now the "Elephant and Piggy" books are terrific. These deal with friend issues of all kinds – making friends, adding friends, sharing. They're great to have around, and they're hilarious.

Kristin: They really are.

Dawn: Well, these really fit into the friendship and solving problem area.

Blythe: Absolutely, yes. This is "Blocks." As we know, interpersonal relationships are not all about making friends. It's also about getting along. So, in this book, we've got Ruby with her red block and Benji with his blue blocks. And what happens is at some time point, Benji tries to take one of Ruby's red blocks.

Kristin: Uh-oh, problem.

Blythe: Yeah, big problem – big problem happens. And the blocks come tumbling down. Oh, crash, there go the blocks! And what's great about this book is such a clear illustration of what happens when we do learn how to share properly. We're going to build together and make something even better.

Dawn: What a great model. Blythe: Yes, great model.

Kristin: Love it.

Blythe: This next book is called "The Little Red Fort." It's a version of "The Little Red Hen." What I really like about this version is in the end, when the friends won't help the little girl build the fort by herself, they realize that they should be helping and they join in. And you get to see the kids having more fun together when they all pitch in.

Kristin: Oh, having cookies in the fort. Blythe: Yes, exactly.

Kristin: Oh, that's great.

Blythe: This is "Giraffe Meets Bird." It's a great book full of vocabulary words relating to getting along. Giraffe and Bird have a lot of differences. It's a great title that shows how we can get along even when we aren't all exactly the same.

Kristin: Having different ideas about the same thing, right, like friends do.

Blythe: This is "The Rabbit Listened." Lovely book. Sometimes something goes wrong, and that's what happens for this little boy. And all of the different animals come up and try to offer some advice. So, they're trying to help. But none of their strategies are quite what this little boy needs until finally we see Rabbit join. And Rabbit simply listens. And I just love the story about how sometimes, being a good friend, you have ideas about how to solve their problem, but sometimes you just need to listen to what they need.

Kristin: I love this kind of higher-level thinking about friendship. What a friend really needs.

Blythe: Such a sweet story. Finally, whether we intend it or not, as teachers, caretakers, parents, and librarians, we're deeply impacting children's perception of the world. And what we choose to focus on has a big impact on that. So, making sure that we're choosing some diverse titles, that we're cultivating their lifelong ability to get along with a wide variety of people. And also, it's important to provide diverse and own-voice titles for books so that kids can learn about each other. There's research that shows links between reading stories and increased empathy for people in actual real life. Other research tells us that kids as young as six months old are already developing biases. And those biases will keep going with them unless they're checked, unless we talk about them with children. And books are such a great way to do that in a personal, positive way where we get to look at the differences in our communities and point those out as we read the stories.

Dawn: I love this idea of making sure you're building friendship skills, no matter what your population is, right? Like, it's increasing your sensitivity to lots of diversity that could be in your classroom – or maybe not. And then all of these books are so helpful at identifying different types of problems and different ways that you can solve them by being there and listening or just supporting a friend. There's lot of great examples here, Blythe.

Kristin: Thank you, Blythe. Blythe: You're very welcome. Dawn: Thanks.