Snail and Turtle Are Friends: Book Review

Friendship. Snail and Turtle are friends. They don't like everything each other does; or do what each other does all the time. But they do like being together.

Title: Snail and Turtle are Friends
Author: Stephen Michael King
Illustrator: Stephen Michael King
ISBN:9781743620236 (hardcover); 9781760273941 (Board Book)          Language: English

Classification: Fiction
Themes: friendship, differences

What's it about?Meet Snail and Turtle. Though they look very different and like very different things there are still many things that they love to do together. And no matter what...they're still friends.

Embrace
Very simple sentences with complementary illustrations. Shades of green mostly throughout and then a huge burst of colour towards the end.

Beware
Not today

My ThoughtsThis book was shortlisted in CBCA's Book Week 2015 in the category of Book of the Year: Early Childhood and also won the Speech Pathology Australia Book of the Year (0-3).

When reading a book about friendship it is very easy for the story to be...well, a bit contrived and preachy. Having written that this book is neither. Snail and Turtle are both great characters in themselves. The books shows us that they both have things they love and don't love; things they do together and things they do apart; things they have in common and how they differ. Despite their differences Snail and Turtle are friends.

This book doesn't have a lot of words. In fact, most pages only have a sentence but in truth that's all that is needed. With those sentences the author has managed to deliver a really deep and meaningful book about how friendship is based not on likes and dislikes but knowing the other person and accepting their differences.

This is a particularly good book to consider for the beginning of the year when looking at getting along with each other.  I also can see this one as being useful in tasks where students make connections with Text-to-Self - in the manner of looking at their similarities and differences with a friend.

Overall, an enjoyable book that definitely deserves a place on the bookshelf.

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