How to Be a Friend: A Guide to Making Friends and Keeping Them (Dino Tales: Life Guides for Families)

This book is not for everybody and not for any age. I was bit disappointed with negative reviews about this book who spoil it for older kids parents. This book is dealing with attitudes of older 5 6 and 7 years old and younger kids should NOT even be exposed to that because they indeed make pick up some from those. Older kids however can really use this book to express their problems with friends, their problem with their friend making and find solutions. My son has problems with a friend who tells all his boy scout friends what to do all the time. He could not fix this and we could not fix this, but one day he has him over and showed him the book and that other boy red the one page about BOSSES and he blushed. He saw himself in it. It gave very clear examples of a child who was bossing others on this page and he took it and got it. Yes, this is awesome and amazing book and helps to see what is good and what is bad when comes to friendship. There is tons books about bullies and how to deal with them but this book is a simple visual guide to situations among school age kids in K to 2 and how to navigate in that when you are that age. It is book for kids not for parents and kids really GET IT. There are good examples to follow for those who need them and bad to reflect on them for bad behaving kids and for good kids to help to see how and what to say and what to do. What not to love? It is very affordable book, one Starbucks coffee really, no risk to me and I think it was so much wisdom and so much learned from it. Nothing to loose all to gain. Again, DO NOT buy for younger kids no matter how advance readers and smarts they are because this is the same problem as with those smart pants ending send to Kindy one year earlier and then being socially inadequate for most situations. Being smart and advanced is one think, fit socially another. therefore do not expose younger kids to those problems, just as you should not send younger kid early to Kindy :)

My 4 year old son's neuropsychologist highly recommended it as a great way to teach him about social norms so that he can build some good friendships instead of turning all the kids off with his boisterous and sometimes overbearing reactions (and affinity for pushing and chasing) Well, both of my kids (my youngest is 1.5) absolutely ADORE this book! They have wanted to read it every single day since it arrived. My son seems to be taking some of the lessons to heart, as he will bring up ways to be good friend or how not to be a friend randomly throughout the day. Our first playdate since getting this book also went swimmingly! There are a couple of more mature themes mentioned in this book- divorce being one of them. Not that I personally think it is an inappropriate topic, but if you have a child that you don't think is ready to discuss something like that, it's something to keep in mind. Though the beauty of reading to small children typically too young for stuff like that is- they can't read! So if you skip over a part, they never even know! (I always skip the part where the mom commits a little B&E and then cradles her sleeping adult son in that-book-that-shall-not-be-named because, creepy. And both kids are none the wiser) So yeah, this book is great, especially if you kiddo needs a little nudge about how to be good friend material. I'm not sure why, but small children tend to take a book's word for it more than if mom or dad tells them themselves... Worth every penny!

This has been a great book for my 3 year old son. He started his first year of preschool this year and sharing, taking turns, and playing nicely has been bit of a problem for him! We sit down and read this book often to remind him "how to be a good friend"! I feel that he understands what's going on in the book and has seemed to pick up on good behaviors from this book also! They have pictures and examples on ways to be a "good" friend. We read each picture and then I ask him questions about the pictures and we discuss what's the right and wrong thing. It has also been helpful between him and his little brothers. All I need to do is remind him about this book and things seem to go a little smoother!

Good book but uses calling the name stupid and singing trading songs as examples of unfriendly behavior so maybe more suited for older kids, rather than the 2-3 year old I got it for.

My six-year old has been struggling with making friends. I have checked out from the library a number of books related to making friends, and this one really struck a chord with him. He requests to read it over and over again. It provides real life tricky situations that are difficult for a child to navigate through, and it presents some options for what a child could do in those situations. He is reluctant to take mom and dad's advice, but listens whole heartedly when we read this book to him. The author presents the information in a very kid-friendly and fun way. It has been a great tool for our son and hope it does the same for your child.

This book really helped my daughter open up about what goes on at school! I think it’s an awesome read to start healthy conversations about friendship for young learning minds.

I bought a bunch of books for my 4 year old son when I learned he was teasing the other kids at his preschool. This was one of them. He loves this book, and I notice that he has gotten so much better playing with other children since we started reading this book. It has been so effective that I simply say "Jimmy, is that how you be a good friend?" when I feel he is being unkind, and he will answer me, using "good friend" examples from the book, and immediately change his behavior. He also tells other children how they can be "good Friends" too. Unfortunatley, as he nears the age of being a "tattle tale", he is very quick to point out when other children aren't being "good friends" and tells them "You need to read Mommy's book." LOL I highly recommend to any parent.

My son (7) loves this book and it inspires thoughts and conversations with his dad who speaks and reads English with him. Very valuable.

Thanks to this book, my kid has shared so many things happening in her school life between friends. It’s the best way to discuss their relation while reading it.

I don't have much time to write reviews but felt compelled to let the world know how great this book is. I loved it so much I bought a few copies and donated them to my son's school. My 4 year old son loves this book and sometimes after a hard day at school he will ask for the book and go to a specific page and ask me to read it...I then know 'something' has been going on at school. After reading the page we then have a discussion about the situation and what he could have done or the other person could have done to resolve or prevent the situation arising in the future. The book is done in cartoon form and my son is completely engaged by this book.....more so than any other book we have. My favourite part of the book is inside the front cover which lists all of the 'ways to be a good friend' and inside the back cover which lists 'ways not to be a good friend'. I think this would be an amazing anti-bullying resource for schools especially for the reception year and a must have for any parent who wants to rear a nice person. We also use it as a resource to encourage being nice to your little brother! It covers topics like bullies and bosses, including and excluding people, ways to make people feel good about themselves and bad about themselves, standing up for your friends etc. The best and most useful book i have ever bought.

We like the advice it gives (dad says: it's not a masterwork though, but my son asks me to read it every night)

Some pages are good for 4 or 5 yr old...some are for older children like 7 year old kids... overall it is a good book..must buy for age group of 4 to 8