HOW TO CHEER UP A FRIEND

A child wants to comfort an elephant friend but doesn’t know how.

Wandering around a woodsy setting, the brown-skinned youngster, in yellow hoodie and red pants, knows that the pachyderm is unhappy. What to do? Writing in second person, in rhyming couplets, an unseen narrator offers practical advice: “Do something silly to make him laugh? / Give him a scented bubble bath?” When these actions, pictured amusingly in soft gouache, pencil, and cut paper multimedia illustrations, don’t make things better, the text shifts in tone: “Your friend may want to take a walk. / You can be quiet together… / or he might want to talk… // and talk… // and talk.” With each page turn, colorful shapes explode from the elephant’s mouth, growing wilder and more frenzied. He takes on more human features as he expresses his anger. The elephant looks exhausted, and the narrator tells us, “He might have many troubles to tell. / Don’t interrupt. Just listen well.” The next page includes three vignettes depicting the elephant’s intense feelings, his gray body suffused in hues of blue, red, and yellow as he sobs, stomps his feet, and throws himself to the ground, yelling—a scene that stands out for its visual impact. Supporting social-emotional learning, this candidly reassuring book can be effectively used with young children in classrooms, libraries, and at home to encourage discussions about friendship, sadness, and sensitivity.

Digs a little below the surface of most child-animal friendship books to explore deeper emotions.