Best Picture Books About Friendship (Ages 3–7)

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1. Sharing Silver — best for showing what friendship actually asks of you

Most friendship books tell a child that friends are lovely. Very few tell them what to do. Sharing Silver does. 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.

That's why it sits at number one here rather than in a sharing-only list. The lesson underneath it is a friendship lesson: you go first, you give something, and the friendship comes back to you. It gives a shy or a self-focused child a concrete opening move instead of the useless instruction to go and make friends.

“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. The best book on this list for showing a child how a friendship starts.

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.

2. 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 →

3. 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 →

4. 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 →

5. 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 →

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 →

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.

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.