posted on 27 Jan 2020

Five Ways to make a Friend by Gillian Cross, illustrated by Sarah Horne

Making friends can be the most challenging part of school life and it can take time to find like-minded people.  I went to several different primary schools and can still remember the anxiety on each first day when, no matter how much my parents told me that everything would be fine, I was never quite sure. Ella doesn’t have a very encouraging experience on her first day at a very small school when the four girls in her new class seem dismissive and unhelpful. Within a few pages, the reader can feel her discomfort and loneliness as the day stretches ahead – that is until she remembers the refuge of the library.

Once there, she is welcomed by Josh, a quiet boy from her class who seems keen to be friendly and then she spots what looks to be a useful book called ‘Five Ways to make a Friend’. Ella works her way through the advice, firstly baking delicious cakes to share with the girls but they are rejected. On the other hand, the boys are very excited and gobble them up with enthusiasm. The second piece of advice is: ‘Tell them when they have done something good’ which seems fairly straightforward until this backfires and Ella ends up getting a detention for something that she hasn’t done.

‘Find a new hobby to make them interested in you’ seems a bit daunting, but she is determined to work through the list and settles on developing some origami skills to impress the girls. After a lot of practice over several days, she starts to feel confident but there is only a flicker of interest as she makes birds, flowers and dragons in the playground. Thank goodness, Josh is watching and proves to be a quick learner when Ella patiently shows him how to make his own dragon.

The next piece of advice from the book is ‘Invite them to a party’ which seems to be a touch unrealistic for most children to be able to organise. Luckily, Ella has a very amenable and co-operative Dad who is happy to invite the four girls back to the house at the weekend and so they make invitations and enjoy planning what to eat together. But those ungrateful little wretches change their minds at the last minute and find something more interesting to do.You can probably guess what happens next – the moral being that the best friends are probably the ones that don’t need to be coaxed. But there is one last rather odd tip from the book: ‘Save them when they are in danger’. This is a bit more difficult to plan but Ella does her best and, with the help of Josh, it seems as if she might have finally cracked it. But the resulting long desired sleepover with the girls turns out to be something of an anti -climax.

I liked the way in which Ella persists in trying to forge friendships and the clear message that girls and boys can have a lot in common. I can see that this little story would generate plenty of discussion about why certain characteristics might seem more attractive as well as opportunities to talk about individual differences. I hope that teachers might also reflect on how to ensure that new children are properly welcomed and made to feel valued by finding ways to ensure that the experience of changing schools is positive at whatever stage.

Gillian Cross is a multi -award winning author who knows how to paint an authentic picture of school life and the story is enhanced by plentiful illustrations by Sarah Horne that add to the upbeat atmosphere. This is another triumph from Barrington Stoke, a publisher that aims to engage emergent, reluctant and dyslexic readers. Strongly recommended.

Karen Argent

February 2020