Suitabook
Let’s be Friends
Murray Hunter
CC BY 4.0Credits & Licence
Originally published by Book Dash. Writer: Murray Hunter. Illustrator: Emma Bosman. Designer: Wilna Combrinck. Editor: Ester Levinrad.
Cover resized and converted to WebP; artwork unchanged. Suitabook’s AI guidance is a separate assessment.
Original Book on Book Dash: Let’s be Friends (opens in a new tab)- Reading
- Pause at the encounters and invite your child to read the characters’ expressions. At the ending, ask what has changed in the picture and what remains open to interpretation.
- Themes
- Making friends: The shark greets sea creatures and asks about activities or things they may have in common. The repeated attempts to connect are presented positively, and the story ends with the shark among a group of friends.
- Feeling rejected: After characters swim away, the shark says nobody wants to be its friend and appears sad. The moment shows the shark feeling unwanted; it does not establish why the others leave or make a broader judgement about rejection.
- Worth knowing
- The shark says nobody wants to be its friend after several characters swim away. This brief moment of rejection may be worth noticing with a child who is sensitive to feeling left out.