Friendships come about in many ways. Some happen because we’ve gone to school or church or worked together, or maybe we are neighbors. Some we’ve found through shared experiences or interests — music, quilting, rock climbing, painting, chess, reading, dog walking in the park. Some of the people we call friends are actually more like acquaintances whose company we enjoy, but they’re not in our circle of really close friends — those with whom we have history that has fostered a forever bond, those with whom we share our deepest thoughts and feelings. You are so close, you become like family, for some, even closer than family. And then sometimes, without one bit of history, you meet someone and a kind of magic happens. You become fast friends, as if you’ve known each other for years.
Many of my favorite beginning readers are about friends — Frog and Toad, George and Martha, Henry and Mudge, Bink and Gollie, Elephant and Piggie, Croc and Ally, my own Raymond and Roxy, and so many more.
I’ve just discovered a marvelous new pair of friends, Earl and Worm, created by writer and illustrator Greg Pizzoli. Earl and Worm: The Big Mess and Other Stories, won a 2026 Theodor Seuss Geisel Honor from the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association.
Earl and Worm: The Bad Idea and Other stories is the first in this series about Earl, a zealous and cheerful bird who plays saxophone to help his garden grow but sometimes makes a racket; and Worm, a tidy, quiet soul who loves to read. (She’s a bookworm, after all.) With humor and heart, Pizzoli introduces us to these quirky neighbors as they paint their houses, share lemonade and write poetry together. In The Big Mess and Other Stories and Snow Problem and Other Stories the unlikely friends clash over paint colors, find a not-so-lucky penny, stay up all night to see the sunrise, deal with a snow storm and celebrate a birthday. Pizzoli’s sweet text and clever illustrations work in harmony. Readers will want to study the pictures carefully to get the full story.
Like Earl and Worm, many of the friends in my favorite beginning readers don’t have a lot in common on the surface. But there is something — a kind of chemistry — that binds them together and creates an unbreakable loyalty. The friends navigate their differences through kindness and honesty, work through ups and downs, compromise, and learn from each other. They have adventures, solve problems, support each other, laugh and cry together and, most of all, love each other.
The examples set by these warm and wonderful, deceptively simple stories can benefit us all.
So head to your library and seek them out. They are sure to bring you joy.
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Bink and Gollie series by Kate DeCamillo and Alison McGhee, art by Tony Fucile
Croc and Ally series by Derek Anderson
Earl & Worm series by Greg Pizzoli
Elephant and Piggie series by Mo Willems
Frog and Toad series by Arnold Lobel
George and Martha series by James Marshall
Henry and Mudge series by Cynthia Rylant, art by Sucie Stevenson & Carolyn Bracken
Raymond and Roxy series by Vaunda Micheaux Nelson, art by Derek Anderson