The teenage guide to friends by Nicola Morgan

Walker Books, 2017. ISBN 9781406369779
(Age: 12-15) Recommended. Subjects: Friendship, Teenage life, Cyber-bullying, Family relationships. Nicola Morgan is an internationally recognised author of teenage health and wellbeing books including Blame My Brain: The Amazing Teenage Brain Revealed and The Teenage Guide to Stress. In The Teenage Guide to Friends, she explores the topic of friendships, looking at making friends, establishing healthy relationships and online experiences. Sections on personality types, family position and being empathetic are written in a practical, relatable format. Morgan emphasizes the value of having a trusted adult to share with, to provide support and guidance.
This book is divided into four sections: What are Friends; Making and Managing Friendships; Empathy and Behaviour and Personality. She explores the thousands of years of human evolution, the development of the human brain and 'the ability to think rationally and use self control.' Each section includes an introduction, questions and responses, signs to look out for and things to think about. Online friendships, cyber-bullying, the influences of social media are discussed with guidelines for handling online cruelty, looking ahead to choices made as a teenager and the consequences for adulthood. Negative and positive behaviours, personality traits, keeping friendships strong, dealing with 'frenemies' are important topics for teenagers to understand.
Teenagers and preteens can use the comprehensive index and explore just the section that interests them, their area of concern or issues that they are dealing with. This reference book is a useful tool for classroom and home teachers, as well as health professionals. Quizzes and a resource section are included as well.
Rhyllis Bignell