Open Your Heart to Unlikely Friendships
Debbie Glade, who finds all animals to be fascinating, reviews this captivating book about unlikely friendships.
Part of a three-book series, Unlikely Friendships for Kids: The Dog and the Piglet and Four Other True Stories of Animal Friendships ($7.99, Workman, Ages 7 and up) is both heartwarming and informative. It’s the kind of book that while reading you find yourself expressing a series of audible, “awwws” because it’s just that darling. Author Jennifer S. Holland is a science writer, who while scuba diving in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, discovered a fish swimming with a very different species of fish, an unlikely pair. This inspired her to seek out more stories about other animals from different species who became unlikely friends.
The photos in the book are so cute,your kids will love them. They will read five unique true stories about: a large dog and piglet from Germany; an orangutan and a cat who lived in a zoo; a hippo and a goat; a standard poodle and a white-tailed deer; and an iguana and a cat from NY City. Each story is educational and lets readers into the hearts of the creatures featured in each story.
What is great about this book is that it teaches kids we don’t have to be alike to get along and that friendships, when they work well, don’t really need a rhyme or reason. They just work, and it’s a beautiful thing. They also learn a little bit about the habits of each animal and there’s a nice list of different species in the back of the book as well as a word and phrase list.
Any book that teaches kids compassion, that they can get along with others and be open to branch out into unknown territories is a wonderful book. I recommend checking out the other two titles in this series. What a lovely gift this set would make!