A Friend Is Someone Who Likes You by Joan Walsh Anglund

A Friend Is Someone Who Likes You
by
Joan Walsh Anglund

I love this book. It was one of the first books I learned to read by myself. It’s a quiet, thoughtful book that reminds me of being a girl and going outside by myself, to look for a friend. The author points out that friends come in all forms and explains friendship in a simple way, that “a friend is someone who likes you.”

It can be a boy…
It can be a girl…
or a cat…
or a dog…
or even a white mouse.

Anglund tells you that a friend can also be a tree with a swing, a babbling brook or even the wind. The wind is your friend because:

It is always with you
wherever you go,
and that’s how you know
it likes you.

I love thinking about this! Anglund even explains how sometimes you might not notice that someone likes you. That’s when you should stop rushing and look around carefully for that special someone who is smiling at you.

This is a gentle book about friendship and quiet smiles, explaining that some people have a lot of friends, some have quite a few,

But everyone…
everyone in the whole world
has at least one friend.

I still remember how special I felt when I read this book. I got it when I was six and I have saved it all these years. It was published in 1958 and is the first of Anglund’s many books.

Anglund is also the illustrator of all her books. In the children, she captures innocence and wonder, whose only features are dots for eyes and rounded faces. Do you remember these faces? I do and my parents still have the Anglund dolls that sat on my bed when I was a girl.

I have this same doll, and a few others too!

Here’s a mini biography I found about Joan Walsh Anglund on answers.com:

Joan Walsh Anglund

Joan Walsh Anglund

(1926–), American author and illustrator. Anglund was born in Hinsdale, Illinois, and was encouraged by her artist parents to observe the world closely. A Friend Is Someone Who Likes You (1958) was the result of the loneliness Anglund felt when moving to New York; it was well received, appearing in the the New York Times list of the top ten illustrated books of the year. About a hundred similar books have appeared since then, easily identifiable by the large-headed children, with their plump cheeks and wide-set eyes, in settings scaled down to comforting cuteness.

Joan Walsh Anglund is still busy creating so be sure to visit her website!

I found more interesting information about Anglund on hubpages.com.

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