A friend is someone who likes you by Joan Walsh Anglund

This book is not in our school library. It is very very old, first published in 1959, but I just felt like talking about this tiny book that touched my heart when I was very young.

Here is some of the text :

A friend is someone who likes you

It can be a boy

It can be a girl

or a cat …

or a dog …

or even a white mouse

…

A brook can be a friend in a special way.

It talks to you with splashy gurgles.

It cools your toes and lets you sit

quietly beside it when you don’t feel

like speaking.

…

Sometime you don’t know who

are your friends.

Sometimes they are there all the time,

but you walk right past them

and don’t notice that they like you in a special way.

And then you think you don’t have any friends.

Then you must stop hurrying and rushing so fast

…

Sometimes you have to find your friend

… everyone … everyone in the whole world

has at least one friend.

Where did you find yours?

This book introduced me to words like brook and to the magic of very simple words to convey an emotional message. I also loved the illustrations then and they still make me smile.  I have two copies of this book. One a little newer bought in the last ten years at a second hand sale and my original copy with my name in simple printing inside the cover and my clumsy colouring of the black and white illustrations.  I treasure both.