16 of the Best Children’s Books About Friendship

This sweet book explores friendship between children with different personalities and interests. Dennis likes to express himself through mime but is lonely when other children don’t understand his form of expression — until he meets new friend Joy.

Featuring Julián from the bestselling book Julián Is a Mermaid, this book looks at new friendship, love, and celebration. Julián and his cousin Marisol take part in a wedding, make a new friend, and cause adorable, muddy chaos at the celebration.

Following an illness, young Lotus is lonely — until she finds Feather, an injured crane. The two become fast friends, getting into multiple adventures, but Lotus realises that to be a real friend to Feather, she has to help him migrate with the other cranes.

Animal-loving children will adore this true story of friendship between an orphaned baby hippo, Owen, and 130-year-old tortoise Mzee, who became friends when Owen arrived at the wildlife conservation park in Kenya where Mzee lived. The unlikely pair bonded and became fast friends until Owen was old enough to be socialised with other hippos.

Learning to set healthy personal boundaries is one of the most important lessons for anyone, adult or child. In The Not-So-Friendly Friend, Furnival teaches young-child-appropriate lessons on how to deal with a bully, how to negotiate on-and-off friendships, and how to be assertive.

The first in an ongoing series, Ivy and Bean introduces readers to two sparky characters. When they meet, Ivy and Bean are both convinced that they could never be friends, but circumstances soon prove them wrong.

This story is an ideal read for any young child who is dealing with a friend moving away. When Jada Jones’s best friend starts a new school, she feels lonely, as she knows more about finding cool rocks than making new friends. But when her teacher assigns a class project on rocks and minerals, Jada may be able to combine her hobby with her hunt for friendship.

Bookworm Anna finds reading a lot simpler than making friends. Up until now, she has always sought comfort and companionship in the stories she reads, but Anna realises that while she can learn a lot from books, she has to step outside her literary comfort zone in order to make friends.

Omar has recently moved to a new house, which comes with a new school and a need to make new friends — unfortunately, this is made more difficult by racism from the class bully. Despite the serious topic, this is a laugh-out-loud funny story for elementary readers.

Third in the Mia Tang series, Room to Dream follows Mia, whose family runs a motel, and her family and friendship dramas. In this book, Mia and her family go to Beijing on holiday, and Mia processes the two different sides to her cultural identity as she builds her friendship with her cousin Shen.

New girl Lydia has begun to make friends at her school when she is wrongly accused of stealing the school trophy. After running away, Lydia is caught in a freak storm and transported to the future, where she finds out the impact that the fallout from her accusation will have, not only on her own life, but on that of her new friends.

The Norse god of mischief, Loki, undergoes his greatest challenge yet when, after a prank gone wrong, he’s sentenced to attend school on Earth as an 11-year-old boy. To get back to his previous godly status, Loki has to show “moral improvement” — which includes learning to tell friends from enemies.

Following her mum’s success as a best-selling author, Pea moves to London and starts attending a brand new school. But while there are many parts of her new life that she loves, she’s lonely — so she sets herself the task of finding a new best friend.