When I was a young, shy kid, making friends could be difficult. So I am thrilled that Little Bookworm has the confidence and outgoing nature that I didn’t. She makes friends everywhere we go, and I love watching her do that. So she loves when we find a new children’s book about making friends. As fans of Tom Percival’s Big Bright Feelings books, we were excited to check out his newest book about a young girl who learns how to express herself and make friends.

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Meesha Makes Friends was written and illustrated by Tom Percival. This addition to the Big Bright Feelings series of books follows a young girl named Meesha. She loves making things. But the one thing she struggles to make is friends. So she takes it upon herself to make her own friends. She gathers materials and creates her own set of friends. When she goes to a party with a lot of other kids, she gets overwhelmed and hides away to play with the friends that she made. A young boy joins her, and soon she finds herself making real friends too. The illustrations use black, white, and gray to highlight the character’s emotions and loneliness in the story, with bright bursts of color showing the joy she gets from her friends, both invented and real.

Making Friends

This book is a great way to talk to kids about making friends and learning to express their emotions. In the story, it is easier for Meesha to get her emotions out through her creations than by talking to others. This is true for a lot of kids, and helping them to understand that about themselves and others can help them to make friends. Talk to your kids about the story and ask them if they can relate to Meesha. Have they felt overwhelmed when surrounded by lots of people? Do they prefer being alone than with large groups? Do they know someone like Meesha? How can they reach out to that person and try to befriend them? There are lots of lessons that can be learned from this adorable book, just like the others in the series!

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Making Friends Out of Supplies

Little Bookworm has been having lots of fun creating things out of craft supplies. Given a pile of pipe cleaners, pom poms, stickers, paper, and beads, she has created all kinds of creatures and friends. This kind of creative play gives her a chance to let her imagination run wild, and I get to watch the way her mind works. Figuring out how to take a pile of materials and create something encourages her to use her problem solving skills, while twisting pipe cleaners and threading beads strengthens her fine motor skills. Provide your kids with a collection of craft supplies and have them create their own friends. You could also use playdough or clay too.

Drawing to Music

Music has the ability to make us feel things and create pictures in our head, whether with lyrics or with notes. Encourage kids to create their own artwork out of music, just like Meesha does in the story. Lay out a collection of art supplies for kids and provide them with blank pieces of paper. Play different types of music for them and encourage them to create something based on what they hear. Maybe their markers move faster while listening to upbeat music, or they use cooler colors for sadder music. Give them the freedom to create without restrictions and see what they come up with!

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Drawings out of Numbers

In the story, Meesha can make pictures out of anything, including numbers. This reminded me of a game that I used to play with one of my best friends growing up. We always paired up in class when it was time to grade each other’s quizzes. After adding up our score, we would take the extra time to create comic strips for each other with the number we scored. Each number would become it’s own character. This illustration reminded me of these comic strips, and encouraged us to play with numbers in a similar way. We used chalk to create our own pictures. You could easily do this on paper or on playdough, using stamps as a base for your number characters! What kinds of pictures can your kids come up with using basic number shapes?

Do you have a favorite children’s book about making friends? Share in the comments below!

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