Best Picture Books About Friendship (Ages 3–7)

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They are ordered by the part of a friendship each one is about, because that is what decides whether a book helps on a given evening. The first few are about starting something. The middle ones are about being let in, or not being let in. The last few are about keeping a friend once you have one, which is the part nobody thinks to read a story about until it goes wrong.

1. Should I Share My Ice Cream? by Mo Willems

Gerald the elephant has an ice cream. His best friend Piggie isn't there. He spends the whole book agonising over whether to share it, and by the time he decides, it has melted. Funny, brilliantly paced, and the ending is far kinder than the setup deserves. Children who won't sit through a "message" book will sit through this one, and the message lands anyway. View Should I Share My Ice Cream? on Amazon →

2. Enemy Pie by Derek Munson

A boy has one enemy, and his dad promises a secret recipe that will get rid of him. The catch is that you have to spend a whole day being nice to your enemy first. You can guess where it goes, but children genuinely don't, and watching them realise what the dad has done is worth the price of the book. The best story here for a child who has decided somebody at school is horrible. View Enemy Pie on Amazon →

3. The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister

The most beautiful fish in the sea has shimmering scales and no friends, and only works out the connection when he starts giving the scales away. It's the classic for a reason, and the foil illustrations still stop three-year-olds mid-sentence. Some parents find the giving-away-parts-of-yourself reading a bit much, and it's a fair objection to have in mind. Small children tend to take it far more simply than that: showing off doesn't get you anyone to play with. View The Rainbow Fish on Amazon →

4. Each Kindness by Jacqueline Woodson

This one is different, and you should know that before you open it. A new girl arrives, Chloe turns her away every time, and then the new girl leaves and the chance to be kind is simply gone. There's no tidy repair at the end. It's the quietest book on this list and probably the one that does the most work, precisely because it doesn't let anyone off. Save it for five and up, and read it when you have time to talk afterwards. View Each Kindness on Amazon →

5. Sharing Silver: for the giving side of friendship

Sharing Silver sits in the same corner as the Rainbow Fish. Silver the Super Pup meets a naughty dog called Bandit who takes and never gives, and instead of scolding him, Silver walks him around Friendship Forest to see what giving looks like: Olivia's music, Benny's waterwheel, a whole forest that looks after the ones who look after it. By the end Bandit works it out for himself, which is the bit children remember.

Be clear that it is a sharing story first. Friendship is a by-product rather than the plot: it comes in through Silver's lines "If you are friendly, you will have friends" and "the kindest animals have the most friends," not through two characters becoming friends. So it won't help much with being left out or falling out. Where it earns a place is with the self-focused child who hasn't yet linked giving with having people to play with.

“The kindest animals have the most friends, and those who help the most have helpers everywhere.”

Sharing Silver is a superhero training story about sharing and giving, written for ages 3 to 7. A sharing story that covers the giving side of friendship.

View Sharing Silver on Amazon

You can read a sample of Sharing Silver before you buy, or if things are harder than usual at the moment, our guide on what to do when your child has no friends is the practical companion to it.

6. Have You Filled a Bucket Today? by Carol McCloud

The bucket idea is simple enough for a three-year-old to hold onto: everyone carries an invisible bucket, kind words fill it, unkind words empty it. It's more of an explainer than a story, so it won't win on plot, but the metaphor sticks and it gives your family a shared phrase. Plenty of infant classrooms use it already, so your child may well arrive home talking about bucket-filling. View Have You Filled a Bucket Today? on Amazon →

7. Sharing a Shell by Julia Donaldson

The one for the youngest end of the range. A hermit crab won't share his new shell with a blob of anemone or a bristleworm, until a fight with a bigger crab shows him what the three of them are worth together. Donaldson's rhyme carries a two-year-old who wouldn't sit still for anything else, and the point about needing each other comes through without a word of moralising. View Sharing a Shell on Amazon →

8. The Invisible Boy by Trudy Ludwig

Brian is the boy nobody picks. Nobody is cruel to him, which is the point; he is simply never noticed, and Ludwig draws him in pale grey while the rest of the class is in colour. Then a new boy arrives, Brian does one small thing for him, and the colour starts turning up in Brian too. Reading age 5 to 8. This is the book for a child who is waiting to be included and has not worked out that they could be the one doing the including. View The Invisible Boy on Amazon →

9. Strictly No Elephants by Lisa Mantchev

A boy with a very small pet elephant arrives at the Pet Club and finds a sign on the door telling him not to bother. He does not argue. He walks away, finds the other children who were turned away too, and they start their own club with a better sign. Quiet, warm, and gently defiant. Amazon puts it at preschool to grade 3, and for a child who has been left out of something it offers an actual next move instead of a feeling. View Strictly No Elephants on Amazon →

10. Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes

Chrysanthemum loves her name right up until the first day of school, when the other girls decide it is ridiculous. What makes this one work is how ordinary the unkindness is. No villains, just children being children, and it still flattens her. The turn comes from a teacher, which some parents find a bit convenient and others recognise straight away from their own child's classroom. Worth reading in the week before term starts. View Chrysanthemum on Amazon →

11. A Sick Day for Amos McGee by Philip C. Stead

Amos is a zookeeper who makes time for each animal every day: chess with the elephant, a slow race with the tortoise, sitting quietly with the shy penguin. Then he stays home ill, and the animals catch the bus to look after him. It won the Caldecott Medal in 2011, and Erin Stead's illustrations are as unhurried as the story. Nothing in it is about making a friend. It is about the part that keeps one, which is turning up. View A Sick Day for Amos McGee on Amazon →

12. Stick and Stone by Beth Ferry

A lonely stick, a lonely stone, a pinecone who picks on one of them, and a rescue that goes back the other way later. It rhymes, it is barely longer than a nursery verse, and it lands the thing that turns someone you know into someone who is yours: they stood up for you. Good for the youngest end of the range, and good when you are five minutes from lights out. View Stick and Stone on Amazon →

13. Nerdy Birdy Tweets by Aaron Reynolds

Nerdy Birdy has a best friend called Vulture, then discovers a place full of easier friends online and stops noticing the one standing next to him. It is the only book on this list about losing a friendship rather than starting one, and it is funny enough that a six-year-old never feels lectured. The apology at the end is a decent model, mostly because it is specific. Reading age 4 to 8. View Nerdy Birdy Tweets on Amazon →

How to pick one, and how to read it

Match the book to the thing that's actually happening. A child who takes and doesn't give needs Sharing Silver or the Rainbow Fish. A child who's decided someone is an enemy needs Enemy Pie. A child who left someone out needs Each Kindness. A toddler who screams over a toy needs Sharing a Shell, and not much else.

The newer half of the list covers the situations that come up once school starts. Left out of something: Strictly No Elephants for the little ones, The Invisible Boy from about five. Teased for who they are: Chrysanthemum. Has a friend and is starting to take them for granted: Nerdy Birdy Tweets. Needs to see what loyalty looks like when it costs nothing dramatic: Stick and Stone, or A Sick Day for Amos McGee.

It also helps to know that a three-year-old and a seven-year-old are not reading these the same way. Robert Selman, a Harvard developmental psychologist, described friendship understanding as moving through stages: the youngest children treat a friend as whoever happens to be beside them right now, and only later does a friend become someone who does nice things for you, and later still someone whose side of it you can hold in your head alongside your own. Research suggests this is roughly why a four-year-old shrugs at Each Kindness and a seven-year-old goes quiet. Neither reaction is a failure. It is worth re-reading the harder books a year on, because a child often meets them properly the second time.

Then read it more than once. The first read is a story; the third read is when a child starts predicting what the character should do, which is the moment the lesson becomes theirs. The last step matters most and costs nothing: name it out loud when it happens for real. "You let her go first. That's a Rainbow Fish thing to do." Children learn social behaviour by seeing it modelled and then having it noticed, and the noticing is the half most of us forget.

For more on all of this, see raising a kind, sharing friend, our round-up of the best books about making friends if the problem is specifically getting started, and playdate ideas that build friendship skills for putting it into practice.