Hunter's Best Friend at School: A Delightful Picture Book About Friendship and Peer Pressure for Kids (Ages 4-8)

We all know that it's important -- and hard -- to stand up to people we don't know well... But let's be honest for a minute. It's just as important, and often much harder, to stand up to our friends when they do wrong. And unfortunately, children's books about standing up to our friends seem much harder to find! For an elementary audience, you all know that I love The Hundred Dresses. Today, I've got a delightful picture book aimed at younger readers and listeners about doing the right thing when your best friend is trying hard to pull you off track -- Hunter's Best Friend at School.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Hunter and Stripe are best friends who like all the same things and love to do everything together. All is good until one day, Stripe comes to school "in a mischief-making mood." Playful and distracting, he tries Hunter into his troublemaking with him.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀And Hunter... Stripe's antics look like so much fun, and he knows he always has fun doing whatever Stripe is doing. So, he joins in, but following Stripe’s choices doesn’t bring Hunter any joy. In fact, Hunter feels "awful" and the rest of his day is "terrible."
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀We've all been in this position, faced by a choice to do the right thing, or to go along with what our best friend is doing. It is SO HARD to do what our hearts tell us is right when we may risk disappointing or alienating our best friends.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Fortunately, Hunter's mother has been in this quandary before, too, and she offers Hunter some sage advice: "Being a best friend doesn't always mean following along. Sometimes being a best friend means you have to help your friend to be his best self."⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Of course, Hunter has a chance to put this advice in action the very next day, when Stripe indeed begins to act up again. Rather than following along this time, Hunter leads by example. No, he never uses his words to stand up to Stripe, but as we all know, sometimes actions speak louder than words.

Awesome book for parents and care givers that shows a lot of great skills like setting a good example and helping someone be their very best selves. But also has bits that can be used to talk about feeling left out, including others in play and getting the sillies, and spending too much time with one friend. Use often in my preschool classroom.

Our grand-daughter was having some "friend" trouble in Grade 1 and this story helped to support her parents in teaching her to do the right thing and often your friends will follow you instead of you following them. A good moral in an entertaining story.

Too wordy for the age it is targeting. Should've done bigger and less words.I like the message though. Not sure if the kids got it because they started tuning it out halfway through. Too wordy!

I teach third grade. This book is terrific for your social-emotional-library.

Got this for my 5yr old grandson as part of his valintines gift ( better than choclate) lol. I just read it and its adorable with a lesson on behavior. His name is Hunter so that was an extra bonus. Good book with nice illustration.

perfect friendship and being your best self book. my daughter was having a hard time in pre-school standing up for herself and being her "best" self. She was following others when they weren't being their best selves--this deals clearly and perfectly with this issue. Gave a copy to her teachers and they loved it too.

Yesterday my daughter in kindergarten just had an incident in which she mimicked the bad behavior of her friend and got into enough trouble she was sent to the principal's office! In kindergarten! I am the guest reader tomorrow morning in her class, and I wish, I wish I had my hands on this book to read in the morning!! Oh well, I'll read it to her at home when it comes in.

A great book for reading to your child or to your class to teach about not following others and setting a good example to help your friends behave better yourself.

Lovely story about being friends. My little girl took it to school to share

I wish I had this in hard cover. I read this story to my primary classrooms and my 4 sons. Year after year, it is a helpful book for the issue of peers pressuring my boys to misbehave in class. My youngest loves this book still. Just repurchased it because we couldn't find first copy.