Friends - Softcover

Rob Lewis

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0099266121 ISBN 13: 9780099266129

Publisher: Red Fox, 2000

Synopsis

Oscar the rabbit discovers that friends -- in whatever form they come -- are full of nice surprises.

Oscar just moved to a new house with his mother.
He was looking forward to making lots of friends.
"I hope they like to swim," Oscar said to his mother.
"Because that's what I like doing best."
Oscar headed down the path.

When Oscar moves to a new part of the woods, he wants nothing more than to make some friends and go swimming. Much to his dismay, all the potential friends have their own interests. And there's no one just like Oscar: one is too noisy, one is too wild, one is too smart, one is too bashful. But after returning home alone and disappointed, Oscar realizes that the best friendships require a little give and take.

This playful picture book explores the meaning of friendship with subtlety and charm.

About this title

About the Author

Rob Lewis is the author and illustrator of numerous books for children. Rob lives with his family in a small town in Wales, where he finds inspiration for his stories in the mountains and moorland that surround their home.

From Publishers Weekly

When young Oscar, a rabbit, moves to a new house, his quickness to judge others makes establishing friendships in his neighborhood difficult. Lewis, a native of Wales, knows exactly how a child especially an insecure one can be brutally honest in sizing up peers: Ernie, who likes to play with junk, "didn't smell very good"; Charles, an intellectual sort, is discarded because "Oscar didn't like anyone who was smarter than himself." The hero walks home alone, a small, solitary figure in what seems a very lonely world. But Oscar's mother offers some good counsel: "If you want to make friends, then you will have to join in with what they like doing." Oscar sees the truth in her advice as he watches the other rabbits playing with one another, and his new willingness to meet them halfway gains him companionship in the thing he likes to do most: swim. In his prose and his tableau-like acrylics, Lewis never shies from depicting the pain of feeling left out. In the soothing tone of his narrative and serene vignettes, he shows that making friends can be easy and fun ("He played ships with Ernie in the junkyard. He built a train with Charles"). That makes Oscar's emotional turnaround and the joyful conclusion in the swimming hole feel authentically uplifting. Ages 3-6.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Red Fox
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0099266121
• ISBN 13: 9780099266129
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 32