Through good times and bad times, friendship is one of the things that makes life worth living. On International Friendship Day (July 30), celebrate with those close to you with some of these books and movies!
Books for Kids
How to Grow a Friend by Sara Gillingham
“Making a friend takes patience, care, and room to bloom — just like growing a flower. Soon your little gardeners will have their own green thumbs for this most important of life skills.”
My Two Blankets by Irena Kobald & Freya Blackwood
“A homesick little girl who has recently moved to an unfamiliar country comforts herself by clinging to an old blanket, but when she meets a new friend, the relationship helps her take her first steps into a new culture.”
“Llewellyn, a little rabbit, is a collector. Then he meets another rabbit, Evelyn, and together they begin to collect extraordinary things. But one day, Evelyn has sad news: Her family is moving away. How can the two friends continue their magical collection — and their special friendship — from afar?”
“Dennis is an ordinary boy who expresses himself in extraordinary ways. But being a mime can be lonely. It isn’t until Dennis meets a girl named Joy that he discovers the power of friendship–and how special he truly is!”
Alfie (The Turtle That Disappeared) by Thyra Heder
“Told from the perspective of both the girl, Nia, and her pet turtle, Alfie, and describes what happens when he disappears on the eve of her seventh birthday to find her a special present.”
The Adventures of Beekle: The Unimaginary Friend by Dan Santat
“An imaginary friend waits a long time to be imagined by a child and given a special name, and finally does the unimaginable — he sets out on a quest to find his perfect match in the real world.”
“When a young Cree girl moves from the country to a small town, she feels lonely, but soon she meets an elderly woman next door, who shares her love of nature and art. As the seasons change, can the girl navigate the failing health of her new friend?”
“Growing up in the same Chinese-American suburb, perfectionist Christine and artistic Moon become unlikely best friends, whose friendship is tested by jealousy, social expectations, and illness.”
When Friendship Followed Me Home by Paul Griffin
“Ben, always an outsider, is led into a deep friendship with Halley, who is being treated for cancer, by the special dog he and his adoptive mother take in.”
Paper Chains by Elaine Vickers
“Ana attempts to hold her family together after her father’s departure while her best friend, Katie, begins wondering about her birth parents, and the two must work through the tangles of their secrets before it tears them apart.”
Salt: A Story of Friendship in a Time of War by Helen Frost
“Twelve-year-olds Anikwa, of the Miami village of Kekionga, and James, of the trading post outside Fort Wayne, find their friendship threatened by the rising fear and tension brought by the War of 1812.”
“Two women whose voices weren’t being heard. Two women chasing after their dreams and each helping the other to achieve them. This is the true story of two incredibly talented women who came together to help each other shine like stars.”
Books for Teens and Adults
I Will Always Write Back: How One Letter Changed Two Lives by Caitlin Alifirenka & Martin Ganda
“It started as an assignment. Everyone in Caitlin’s class wrote to a student somewhere in a distant place; she chose Zimbabwe. Martin was lucky to even receive a pen pal letter. There were only ten letters, and forty kids in his class. That letter was the beginning of a correspondence that spanned six years and changed two lives.”
Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein
“In 1943, a British fighter plane crashes in Nazi-occupied France and the survivor tells a tale of friendship, war, espionage, and great courage as she relates what she must to survive while keeping secret all that she can.”
How To Be Loved: A Memoir of Lifesaving Friendship by Eva Hagberg Fisher
“A luminous memoir about how friendship saved one woman’s life, for anyone who has loved a friend who was sick, grieving, or lost—and for anyone who has struggled to seek or accept help.”
The Animators by Kayla Rae Whitaker
“In their first year of college, two young women meet in “Introduction to Sketch” and become instant best friends. A decade later, Mel and Sharon’s lives remain intertwined, but so much else has changed. Now a semi-famous New York filmmaking duo, they draw upon their own pasts to make animated movies, a process that has left their friendship in tatters. When tragedy strikes, Mel and Sharon must work to restore damaged relationships with their families, lovers, and each other.”
Jackrabbit Smile by Joe R. Lansdale
“Hap and Leonard are an unlikely pair—a white trash rebel and a black gay Vietnam vet–but they’re the closest friend either of them has in the world. On Hap’s wedding day, the party is interrupted by two white supremacists, who want to hire them to find a missing girl named Jackrabbit. They reluctantly take the case, and it isn’t long until they find themselves mixed up with a cult, lizard-men, and murder.”
Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner
“Tracing the lives, loves, and aspirations of two couples who move between Vermont and Wisconsin, it is a work of quiet majesty, deep compassion, and powerful insight into the alchemy of friendship and marriage.”
Movies
“A young boy befriends a giant robot from outer space that a paranoid government agent wants to destroy.”
“Two terminally ill men escape from a cancer ward and head off on a road trip with a wish list of to-dos before they die.”
“A soldier assigned to Guantanamo Bay befriends a man who has been imprisoned there.”
“After he becomes a quadriplegic from a paragliding accident, an aristocrat hires a young man from the projects to be his caregiver.”
“Four African-American women searching for true love find strength through their rare and special friendship.”
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (2008)
“Through the innocent eyes of Bruno, the eight-year-old son of the commandant at a German concentration camp, a forbidden friendship with a Jewish boy on the other side of the camp fence has startling and unexpected consequences.”
My Afternoons with Margueritte (2010)
“A lonely, semi-literate odd-job man bonds with an elderly woman over afternoons spent reading aloud on their favorite bench.” Available to stream on Kanopy!
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All descriptions are from Goodreads or IMDb.
