What is a Friend?


Children - Concept
32 Pages
Reviewed on 08/25/2013
Buy on Amazon

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Author Biography

Terri Kelley, M.Ed, is the author of dozens of books for children and adults including the Writing is a Process series, the chapter book series Gingerly, as well as many others. Her passion for writing and reading began when she was a very young girl. She was raised in Copperas Cove, Texas where she grew up outside the city limits where she enjoyed riding horses and having lots of freedom to explore her environment. It was an idyllic childhood.

In her life, Terri has held a couple of different careers. Her previous one was as a teacher, reading specialist, and gifted and talented specialist in Tomball, TX where she met and learned from some of the best educators and administrators that the world has to offer.

Education has always been important to Terri and, as a result, she has earned a Master’s Degree in Curriculum and Instruction as well as completing over thirty hours towards a Doctorate in Educational Leadership. It was during her time spent teaching and earning her higher level degrees that she became aware of the kinds of books children enjoyed reading. She also noticed areas of life, education, and learning in need of good children’s books. You will find many of

    Book Review

Reviewed by Katelyn Hensel for Readers' Favorite

What is a Friend is Terri Kelley’s attempt to expose children to the idea of friendship and community, which can be confusing to children when they are very young. I, for one, think that Terri hit another home run with this book. Kids may understand that they have friends, but they don’t understand concepts like 'fair weather' friends, or friends that talk behind your back, or friends that try to get you to do something you don’t want to do. I think Terri does an excellent job explaining these concepts in more detail, which will go miles towards helping kids to decide who their real friends are and are not.

The format was nice, with usually one page of a rhyming descriptive paragraph and on the opposite page, a picture that depicts the message from the page before. As always, the poems were cute and nice, using easy and small words that most children will understand. The pictures were vivid and bright, allowing for a positive message to come through the story.

The pictures themselves were appealing and adorably drawn. I liked the use of diversity without really making a point of it. When children are exposed to diversity from the beginning, they are less likely to draw stereotypes and biases based on race and ethnicity. They can relate, because they see characters in a book before they see kids of other races and nationalities so they understand it to be normal. I'm glad to see that diversity has penetrated children’s literature so thoroughly with Terri Kelley’s work.