A BOOK OF FRIENDS

PLB 0-06-028362-9 Ross reduces a topic as enigmatic and multi-faceted as friendship to didacticism and platitudes. “Friends come in all different sizes and shapes and colors,” the text intones; friends can be big and small, new and old, best and imaginary. The things Ross suggests pals do together—take new experiences, confide troubles, have an adventure, share—will hardly be news to children, and becomes somewhat bald in these pages. The asides are worse: “It’s not the size of your friends that counts. It is the size of your heart” and “It doesn’t matter how many friends you have. . . . It’s quality, not quantity, that counts!” Some people won’t mind the presentation; the bestseller lists are full of such volumes as Ross and Rader’s A Book of Hugs; still, most children will want to dodge the finger-wagging. (Picture book. 3-7)