Forever Friends Hardcover – Picture Book, March 2, 2010

This was such a sweet book. My students loved the messages about friendship!

This is a sweet story about the friendship between a rabbit and a bird.

Sweet book

such a beautiful story ..and illustrations

Winter was just about gone and a little blue bird sat on a branch looking down at a hollowed out log where a little brown bunny was sleeping. Spring had begun. The trees were blossoming and little slivers of grass were starting to grow and a whimsical dragonfly was flitting above the log. The little bird began to call to the bunny singing, "Hello! Come play!" He extended a blossomed branch to the bunny who reached up for it. Before long they were fast friends.The little brown bunny hopped and bopped around as the blue bird swooped down to play with him. They played among the flowers and the bird sat on a red polka dot mushroom as the bunny peeked out from under its cap. Soon summer arrived and they played by the pond in the dark, trying to catch fireflies as they lit up the sky. When fall came around, they played with acorns and oak leaves. Soon the bird said to the little brown bunny, "Now I must fly south." He had promised to come back, but would the little brown bunny's forever friend return?This whimsical tale of a "forever" friendship will delight young children. The story was very simple, but very appealing as the two forever friends played though the seasons. It is a tale of separation at the end, but of course the friends were eventually reunited. The lovely collage is quite well done, so much so that with the exception of graph and lined paper, it looks as if the pages were painted. This is a lovely quaint tale that your little one will ask for time and time again, one that you may wish to add to your collection!

I loved Berger's last picture book, The Little Yellow Leaf, and as soon as I heard about her latest offering, I knew I had to see it.In this story, a blue bird and a bunny form a fast friendship. Over the course of the year, they enjoy spending time together, until the fall, when blue bird must fly south for the winter. Bunny waits for the return of his friend and blue bird finds their separation just as difficult. In the spring, they are joyfully reunited, with another pleasant year ahead of them.Collage is one of my favorite mediums, and Berger uses sharp, exactly cut, found media to strong effect. Most of the pages feature lined notebook or graph paper backgrounds. Many of the flowers and trees are cut from magazines with a only a smidgen of the original words remaining. In many ways, Forever Friends reminded me of that old favorite, The Golden Egg, by Margaret Wise Brown; classic, simple, and true. The bunny asleep in the log, especially seemed to hearken back to Brown's original. The theme of friendship despite their obvious differences put me in mind of a much younger version of the Toot and Puddle series by Holly Hobbie, a little bit too. Short declarative sentences, paired with several pages of wordless frolicking make this book a natural for very young audiences.

The artistic beauty of this book is breathtaking. Each page turn reveals a true work of art. But beyond that, the honesty about friendship is astounding and welcome in a book for young children. True friendship grows between rabbit and bird as they find ways to play together despite their differences -- a lovely and timeless theme in picture books. FOREVER FRIENDS goes deeper, though. The friendship is tested by separation: the bird flies away for the winter, leaving the rabbit lonely in the forest -- we see their separate experiences of winter, apart, in parallel and almost wordless scenes. The anxiety of the question "will my friend return" is one every child suffers, usually as silently as little rabbit does here. When bird soars onto the next page, the delight, relief, and pure happiness that transform rabbit (and somehow the entire gorgeous springtime forest) were echoed in my son's face as we read it together. Probably in my own, as well. What a beautiful gift this book is.

THis book is lovely in every way: beautiful and unusual illustrations, lyrical language that is comprehensible to young children, and a sweet, simple story about the lasting power of friendship. After discovering this book several years ago, I've been surprised by how rarely I see it featured or discussed. It's a gem.