Molly & Mae, written by Danny Parker, reviewed by Klaudia Janek

Student Reviewer: Paul S.
Summary: Molly and Mae is a story about two children that meet at an unlikely place and instantly become friends. At the beginning of the story, Molly finds Mae hiding under a bench and then inside a store. Over the course of forty-five minutes waiting for the bus the two new friends play all sorts of games like dancing, taking pictures and also eating sorbet. Then they get called into the train, to which they continue their games and activities. They ignored people then got hungry waiting to get off the bus. But then Mae got tired of being bossed around, so Molly got angry and rude. Thus breaking their friendship, only until they both missed each other and Molly made a move to repair their friendship until they both became friends again. And then the train stops and they both get off and then the book ends.

Straight Talk for Librarians: This book can be used in classrooms to teach kids that building up friendships with people is important. The book shows this by using bright colors during the parts while Molly and Mae are playing and goofing around and dark colors when they are mad at each other and not together. This shows the importance of friendships by making it seem like you will always be happy while around friends or those that make you happy. The book also can teach children not to hold grudges against people because all it will do is make you and the person feel bad. It shows this because they both miss the presence of each other when they separate from each other because of a little fight. But once they reunite with each other and forget about the problems they faced that is when they become happy and keep building up their friendship.