The Adventures of Beekle: The Unimaginary Friend

 Doing the Unimaginable 

The Adventures of Beekle: The Unimaginary Friend by Dan Santat is a fantastic book about being brave and finding friendship. It won the Caldecott Award in 2015 and was very received for its ability to convey the anxiety that can come with forming new friendships. Because of this, I think it would be a great book to read at the beginning of the year as students are still settling in and getting to know one another!

The gist:

Dan Santat tells us the story of a magical island where imaginary friends are born. Over time all the imaginary friends are imagined by children and given special names -- except for one. He waits and waits, but his turn to imagined and go live in the real world, but his turn never comes. So, he decides to take matters into his own hands and find his child himself. He sets off on an incredible quest and eventually meets his special friend, who names him "Beekle."

My favorite parts:

The illustrations are gorgeous! They're half the story in and of themselves. Check out this page, where you can clearly see exactly how Beekle feels about not having been chosen yet. 

I read this book recently with a four year old I was babysitting and he loved chatting about all the illustrations. I would ask him to look closely at the pictures and ask him questions about how characters were feeling or what he thought might happen next. This book would work well in the classroom to help students develop their inferential skills!

What you can do:

I think this book could lend itself well to a creative writing exercise! Have children draw pictures of what they would want their imaginary friend to look like and have them use this book's illustrations as inspiration. Then, have the children write about the imaginary friend that they drew. What do they look like? What do they like to do? Do they have a name? Then, have an author's circle, where students can show off their work!

Happy Reading!