McBratney and Eachus Demonstrate the Beauty of Friendship and Forgiveness

It's a wonderful thing to have a friend, but even the best of friends sometimes fight. Especially when they are in toddlerhood, when minor inconveniences can seem like disasters, small affronts unpardonable offenses. But if it's especially easy for children that age to get into a fight, they may also be the ideal models for the rest of us in how to end a conflict, repairing a treasured friendship.

Sam McBratney, author of beloved picture book Guess How Much I Love You?, turns his attention to this delicate topic in I'm Sorry, a perfect primer for young children on how to handle disagreements with their playmates. The writing is very simple, with a sentence or two on each page, usually demonstrating a give-and-take between the narrator, a little boy who looks to be about four, and his very special friend.

"I have a friend I love the best," he says. "I think she's nice, and she thinks I'm nice, too. The things we do always make me laugh." In the first half of the book, he tells us what some of those things are. Then he repeats these three sentences before transitioning into the second half with the ominous "But..."

We observe the quarrel between these friends, though not what precipitated it. The cause isn't really all that important, and leaving it ambiguous gives this book the widest possible applicability. What matters is that once the disagreement has occurred, all the joy and light is gone from the faces of these pals. They miss each other. It may be hard to admit, but they do, and so the book ends with the inevitable reparation alluded to in the title. "If my friend were as sad as I am sad, this is what she would do:" the boy concludes. "She would come and say, 'I'm sorry,' and I would say sorry, too."

Jennifer Eachus' luminous illustrations are absolutely gorgeous. She tells the story so effectively with her soft palette of pastels that the words don't even seem necessary. Each page shows the open-hearted, exuberant brown-haired boy and the slightly more timid girl whose head is topped with wispy blond locks engaged in some activity or another, often accompanied by the boy's patient dog. We see him reading to his teddy bear, her wrapping a bandage around his hand; him stretching to pluck down a flower for her from a tree in full bloom, her running ahead of him as they splash through mud puddles.

The pictures are irresistibly gentle; you want to immerse yourself in them, to wrap yourself in their warmth. I can't imagine a more comforting book to read to a child who has just experienced the turmoil of such an argument for the first time, and adults can benefit too. No matter how many times a person has gone through this scenario, it's nice to be reminded that friendships can usually be repaired with a little effort from both parties. All it takes is two little words.