Judy Dunn has the happy knack of helping us to look afresh at the children we thought we knew - including our own. Her new book shows that in the context of friendship, children have an opportunity - from kindergarten upward - to go on imaginary adventures, to engage in give-and-take and, eventually, to learn about commitment in ways that the immediate family can rarely match. We glimpse children at their best in this delightful book - and sympathize all the more with those children who want to make friends but have none.
Paul Harris, Harvard Graduate School of Education This magical new book by Judy Dunn explores the development of friendships in young children. She draws on close observation of toddlers, pre-schoolers and school children to demonstrate the role of intimate friendships in encouraging children to share ideas, coordinate pretend play and express affection for those that are not kin. This book will inform the practice of professionals who care for young children and intrigue parents - who will see immediately how the friendships of their own children are the spur to imagining what's in the mind and heart of another. Kathy Sylva, Professor of Educational Psychology, University of Oxford
Judy Dunn, one of our most astute chroniclers of children's social lives, provides a fascinating glimpse into the often neglected world of children's friendships. Using real-life illustrations from her own studies as well as rich insights from novelists and biographers, she convincingly shows the important place of friends in children's development. Parents as well as professionals will learn much from this timely and readable volume. Ross D. Parke, Director, Center for Family Studies, University of California Riverside
Children's Friendships is a beautifully written account of children's early friendships by Judy Dunn, the leading international authority on childhood development. Primary Times, 29th Nov - 7th Feb 2005
The excitement, the pleasures, problems and humour, the compelling intensity of these relationships with friends (and enemies) in writers' early lives and their fiction are interwoven in Children's Friendships with the present-day examples from the children in Dunn's research and that of others. SirReadaLot.org, January Issue.
