Review of "Three Friends Together," by Hiawyn Oram

 Review of

Three Friends Together, by Hiawyn Oram ISBN 0763567396

Five out of five stars

The value of always inclusive friendship

 Little Penguin, Wally the Whale and Slippy the Seal are friends that often play together. However, when this story opens Little Penguin encounters Slippy and they decide to play together. Wally sees them and feels very sad at being left out. The next day it is Penguin encountering Wally while swimming and Slippy is left sitting on the rocks feeling left out. Finally, on the third day Slippy had joined Wally in swimming and diving together in the water, leaving Penguin alone on the ice flow feeling sad.

 Finally, there is a meeting and all three realize that it is far more fun when they all play together, and they apologize to each other for leaving one out. From that point on, they always make sure that all three friends were part of the play group.

 This is a simple but important lesson about how it feels to be left out of a playgroup of friends. It demonstrates that if you can be in it can also be your turn to be out. With the large size of the text as well as the images, this is a book that can be understood from some distance. Making it ideal for readings to large groups of students. The level of the text is that of the early elementary school student.