Friendship: All About the Ups and Downs

By Oliver Perry, Read to them Staff

Happy Wednesday everybody! So far in the book, Fenway and his short human, Hattie, are having a little rough patch in their friendship. We hope in our final few chapters, Fenway and Hattie will be ‘best buddies’ once again. We’ll have to read and find out! Today we want to talk about this theme of friendship and it’s ups and downs in Fenway and Hattie.

Friendship comes in many forms. In our story, it’s a connection between a girl and a dog. Have you ever had a friendship like this with an animal? Well, this friendship is no less important than a friendship between humans. Fenway really loves Hattie! He wants to protect her from all things Evil, play with her all the time, and on page 36 he says, “Me and Hattie are together, and everything’s the way it’s supposed to be.” Fenway would do anything for his short human! And did you notice? The only part of Fenway’s family that gets a real name is Hattie. She means so much to him!

But friendships aren’t always happy and wonderful. As the family gets situated in their new home, Fenway and Hattie start to drift apart. Fenway misses playing with Hattie, as she would rather climb trees and play catch with Angel. Hattie is even annoyed with Fenway, and she thinks he’s getting in the way! Have you ever had a rough patch with a friend of yours? These moments can always hurt and make us upset, but we need to make sure we make the right decisions even if we’re upset.

Fenway has the right idea, but maybe he isn’t going about getting Hattie’s friendship back in the right way. He should be okay with Hattie being friends with Angel, just like we should be okay with our friends having other friends. If our friends want to do something we don’t normally enjoy, like climbing trees or playing catch, we can either let them enjoy their new hobby, or try it out with them! And we can all agree that Fenway should not have ripped up Hattie’s glove. Just because we get angry or jealous, does not mean we can take out those emotions on others.

So what should have Fenway done? Of course, Fenway is just a dog, but we can learn a lesson from his mistakes. Instead of letting our jealousy and anger build up, we can always talk to our friends about our feelings. If that isn’t an option, we can always find an adult, like a parent or a teacher, to talk to. More than anything, we have to respect that our friends are their own people, and we always want to treat them the way we want to be treated!

We hope you have enjoyed participating in all the activities we’ve done so far for Fenway and Hattie. As we finish the book, keep an eye open for how friendships work in the final chapters. If you have participated in any of our activities, we’d love it if you shared photos with us on Facebook or the trusty ol' Flipgrid. Until next time, be kind to one another, and do something nice for a friend.