Making Friends (Making Friends, 1)

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I've read quite a few positive reviews, to try to understand what it is people enjoy about the book, and it seems that a lot of people really love the humor, and some the magical conceit (girl draws things in magic notebook that then become real). There is seemingly abusive behavior that happens between family members that goes unaddressed; there is a student in foster care who attempts to stab Danny at one point and that's sort of brushed over.

It is full of magic, making friends (which isn't easy to do), imagination, and finding a place to belong.

I think that's a big no for a book that's being targeted at middle grade readers, and since the main character is a girl, I think it's fair to say the target audience is also middle grade girls. There’s only one problem, Madison doesn’t know that she’s not real and Dany has no idea what will happen when she finds out the truth.

But when she looks out of her bedroom window on the morning of her tenth birthday she sees something amazing. Dany begins to realize that she and her friends were very cliquey when they were in grade school and that she had actually been kind of mean at times. However, what makes this picture book stand out from other books for kids about making friends is a clear message about what friendship means as well as numerous useful examples of being a good friend to somebody and understanding other people's feelings and emotions. There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase, a SQL command or malformed data. The quirky illustrations are full of charming details and the unlikely hero of the tale has immense appeal for children aged 3 and over.Instead, she chose to throw in a subplot involving a disembodied head who looks like one of Dany's favorite anime/manga characters, and to my mind this drags the whole book down. As an adult reader there were a few jokes that seemed more appropriate for me than a middle grade audience.

It focuses on how to feel connected again by knowing how to find people like you or create a community of like-minded.Having finished and loved Making Friends, I hurried out to get the sequel, Back to the Drawing Board. This exciting detective story is just another of Chandra Soundar's over 50 children's books published across India, the UK and the US. It went a bit quick for me and perhaps could’ve been two volumes, which would have allowed more time to flesh out family matters and character development.