Books about friendship
Caillou a un ami invisible by Sarah-Margaret Johanson and Eric Sévigny: In this adventure, Caillou has fun with his imaginary friend. Other Caillou books about friendship include the four-page plastic bath book Bébé Caillou: Les amis and Caillou dort chez son ami (Caillou spends the night with a friend).
Émile et Lucette by Christelle Desmoinaux: A proud, gluttonous tomcat refuses to share the delicious food he finds for himself–until he meets a certain lady cat.They end up sharing walks, all their meals, the crate where they sleep–and soon have to share all their finds with their five little kittens!
Les bons amis by Paul François: On a snowy day, a hungry little rabbit finds two carrots, one to eat and one to share; the shared carrot is given from friend to friend until it returns at last to the home of the rabbit. Can be purchased with a recording of the story on CD.
Lily et Chloé: Le premier vol by Isabelle Gibert: From the collection “À deux, c’est mieux” (it’s better with two), this short book features an ant who wants to fly and whose attempts to do are spectacular failures until she enlists the help of her friend the ladybug, who carries her on her back and they fly together.
Petit Ours Brun se fait un copain by Danièle Bour: A very short book starring the popular “Little Brown Bear” from the children’s magazines Popi and Pomme d’api in which he makes a new friend at the lake when they share their toys. (See also Petit Ours Brun a plein d’amis, a coloring book with images of the bear and his friends.)
Roméo et Juliette by Mario Ramos: A pathologically shy elephant, whom everyone calls”Tomate” because of his propensity for blushing, meets a curious mouse with whom he can feel completely comfortable.
Sans toi by Geneviève Côté: The delightful story of two best friends, a rabbit and a pig, who decide to play separately when they get on each other’s nerves. Naturally, they quickly discover that it’s much more fun to share their toys and do activities together.
T’choupi ne veut pas prêter by Thierry Courtin: The beloved character T’choupi learns to share with his friend.
It is also worth noting that many children’s magazines in French frequently offer stories and poems about family and friendship. Pomme d’api, whose target audience is three-to-seven-year-olds, even recently featured a philosophical discussion about the nature of love where the characters discussed whether or not you can say “je t’aime” to your favorite cheese!
And finally, most fairy tales center on families and love–Hansel et Gretel, La belle et la bête (Beauty and the Beast), Cendrillon (Cinderella)–so any version of these stories, whether from a book or the storyteller’s memory, will allow you to share a tale that fits this theme.
Merci beaucoup to Les Petits Livres, an online book rental service specializing in French children’s books in the US, who loaned me a dozen books on this topic and recommended many others!
Still to come in this series: Literacy Activities (Part Four) and Tactile and Kinesthetic Activities (Part Five). Join us on this romp through the French family tree! A new article will appear on Multilingual Living every two weeks.
Need a refresher on expressions in French to describe friends, family members, and love? See our vocabulary round-up here in the introduction to this series.
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
If you have other suggestions of books that should be on this list, please leave a comment below! For example, a visitor to my blog recommended “Benjamin et le bebe” (a translation of one of Paulette Clark’s Franklin series) as a good treatment of the idea of getting a new sibling.
To see a more detailed description of a few of the books from this list, plus pictures of some of their pages, please visit this post from my blog about a French storytime I co-led on this topic: http://babybilingual.blogspot.com/2011/03/storytime-ah-lamour.html
Hello,
Wonderful and helpful list. But equally as important information is where these books can be found in the U.S. (no easy task here in Seattle). If you have any resources, will you please let me know?
Kindly,
Heather
Amazon.fr or amazon.ca is always a good bet for these! Shipping is a bit pricey, but if you order several at once, it is worth it, and shipping is less from Canada.
You also might try the Alliance Française in Seattle. I believe they have a lending library that includes kids books.
Hi Heather,
Thanks for your comment and question! I wish I had an easy answer for you. I live in Colorado and have found children’s books in French in the following ways:
–library used book sales
–garage sales
–used book stores (some owners will make a note of what you’re interested in and let you know when they get books that match your interest)
–exhibit halls at conferences for foreign language teachers
–eBay (US and Canada sites)
–Amazon.com (as noted above, some are easily available in the US; Amazon’s algorithims will also suggest other children’s books in French that they carry)
–having friends/family buy books for me when they travel to Francophone countries
–purchasing from US vendors like World of Reading and Sosnowski Books
–befriending other French speakers whose children are older than mine and who are willing to pass their kids’ outgrown materials on to me!
And you can always purchase a subscription to Les Petits Livres to rent French children’s books by mail! Many of the books on my list are available from this company.
Bon courage!
Anyone else have suggestions of where to buy French books outside of Francophone countries?