eta2: Winner is Kayla. Expect an email from me shortly!
Welcome readathoners! It's Hour 15, I hope everyone's readings are going along speedily.
The theme of this hour's mini-challenge is Friendship. Often an aspect that sadly falls to the wayside when we review/talk about books, let's all take a moment to celebrate a good depiction of the blossoming of friendship for the first time. Who doesn't recall vividly the moment when Anne and Diana from Canada's beloved children's series Anne of Green Gables declared themselves kindred spirits? A show of the first time we make friends can stay with us.
This mini-challenge invites you to share a memorable friendship forming moment in any of the books you've read in your life. The moment when two people click, and they knew they were going to be friends for ever. Please leave the name of title/author of the book, the name of the characters, and explain why you liked this moment.
As one should lead by example, here's mine:
My absolute favourite friendship forming moment is in one middle-grade book (which I suspect may be not very well known) called Losing Forever by Gayle Friesen. I loved her flashback moment of how Dell and Jes became friends as kids. It was just so sweet, so perfect, and Friesen's perfect spot on writing made everything stick that much more in my head, her last lines of that flashback floating in my head over and over the first time I read it. It still has that effect on me. Will quote the passage-
Dell and I became friends in grade three. Until then I had mostly hung out with same, but he was going through his "girls are yucky" phase and I was stranded. When the teacher had changed the seating arrangement in the classroom, Dell and I were seated next to each other. I admired her curly, red hair because it looked like campfire and I told her so.
Her eyebrows shot way up and I thought at first I'd insulted her, but she dove for a notepad in her backpack and I saw her scribbling down my compliment word for word. I noticed her "p" was backward.That last line. It gets to me, every time.<3
"That was descriptive," she whispered.
"Good word," I whispered back.
The teacher made us stay in at recess for talking and Dell drilled me with questions as we cleared the chalk brushes. Where did I live? What was my favorite color? (Hers was fuchsia.) Wasn't Basketball Ballerina the best book ever? (I didn't know, but I said I'd read it.) How many brothers and sisters did I have? (She had a very mean sister named Pammy.)
I'd grown silent for a second, but then I told her what I had not yet said out loud to another person. "My sister died."
All of eight years old, she had wrapped her arm around my shoulder. She'd said nothing, but I saw a big tear fall to the floor. Our friendship was forged on chalk dust and a tear. (pg. 19-20)
Please leave your answer in the comments with a valid email address as a way of contacting you and a winner will be chosen with Random.Org.
Prizes: A mystery (possibly lightly used) book that has friendship as a central theme, along with some bookmark swag. Ships internationally.
Ok dont laugh at me... but one of the friendships I always loved in a book was the Harry Potter books (no laughing!)Harry and Ron really keep Hermione at a distance and then when she tackles the troll and then lies for them they are friends from that point on.
ReplyDeleteThe Harry Potter books really show good strong friendship skills.
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There's nothing really specific, as this book seems to just be filled from beginning to end with friendships (barely formed to unbreakable).
ReplyDeleteI love The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim. It's a book of four women who escape to a vacation castle in beautiful surroundings and come to not only know each other, but forge amazing bonds and it really showcases how beautiful friendship can be in all its stages.
Fitz and the Fool, from Robin Hobb's Farseer and Tawny Man trilogies, have my favourite friendship in all of literature. Some wonderful things happen between them throughout the first trilogy, but wasn't until the beginning of FOOL'S ERRAND, the fourth book, that I realized just how much I love their friendship. They fit together so beautifully throughout that entire book, even when there's some heavy tension between them. I never had any doubt they'd come back together if something drove them apart. Their connection runs so deep that it couldn't be otherwise.
ReplyDelete--Memory xicanti AT gmail.com
I when I think of friendship. I think of Kate and Tully in Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah. Kate and Tully meet in school and become fast friends in the mid 1970s.
ReplyDeletejenceyg@msn.com
Ivy & Bean. VERY cute children's books. I don't have a specific example, but major love.
ReplyDeleteSuch a nice post & challenge. :)
ReplyDeleteOne of my favourite moments is in Harry Potter, when Harry and Ron become friends with Hermione as well. I remember, after they defeated the troll there's a line that goes something like 'From that moment, Hermione Granger became their friend'. Or something like that.
I don't know, it may not be that special, but it has always given me the impression that although Harry & Ron's friendship was amazing, it was in a way incomplete until that moment. And also, when you say 'from that moment', it gives such a warm, nice sense of eternity. :)
I hope I'm making sense. :D
OH my gosh you are sooo right!
ReplyDeleteI think Ann of Green Gables is a great example.
I also loved the friendship the WallFlower series by Lisa Kleypas. I loved when the girls met each other and decided to work it out. It isn't usually a central theme historical romance.
I also love the friendship established in Harry Potter though I don't remember the exact moment it started.
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The first one that comes to mind is from the Harry Potter series. Harry and Ron hit it off on their train ride to Hogwarts, but Hermione isn't truly a friend until all three of them end up fighting the troll in the first book. I can't imagine the series without their close-knit circle and I love that it took something that big to cement their friendship.
ReplyDeleteavidreader25@gmail.com
Oh, curses. Sheila beat me to it. :(
ReplyDeleteI just read a book that featured one of my favorite types of friendship because it is so rare in media: a friendship between a man and a woman. The book was In the Bleak Midwinter by Julia Spencer-Fleming, and while I know that they form a sort of romance in future books, this one didn't get caught up in sexual tension. It just let Clare and Russ become friends, and I am so, so thankful for it!
ReplyDeleteHAHAHA -- I had in my mind the exact same answer as Sheila! I love that moment when Ron and Harry become friends because there's not even a question about it; after she saves them, they're as thick as thieves. (And rightfully so!)
ReplyDeleteI think for me, it is Peeta and Katniss from The Hunger Games. From how he is willing to die for her to her anguish when they are parted, their friendship is a true one... not just romance but a friendship.
ReplyDeleteBahaha, as soon as my comment posted I saw that I'm clearly not alone with remembering that scene. Yay for the HP love.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite, gosh I've read so many. I guess my favorite and most memorable was when I read The False Princess by Eilis O'Neal. Its one of my all time faves! I loved that from the begining Kearnan and Sinda were best friends! Obviously, they were head over heels in love with each other. But from the very begining they were friends! And their incredible bond of friendship eventually blossomed into love! I love how he stood by Sinda through EVERYTHING! When she found out she wasn't the real princess, and was cast out of the kingdom without a penny to her! He was her true love, her best friend, her everything!!! It was the an incredible bond of friendship that was never broken!!! :)
ReplyDeleteAnne and Sarah in "...And Ladies of the Club" by Helen Hooven Santmyer are my favorite literary friends. The books begins at their high school graduation and they remain friends through marriage, children, tragedy and 1400 pages, until their deaths and then it continues in the next generation.
ReplyDeleteThe Loser's Club from Stephen King's It! 7 misfits, all from different backgrounds, all outcasts for different reasons, able to come together over shared enemies and a shared goal to save themselves and their town from a (literal) monster. They all worked so well together and each had their moment to shine individually because they were part of a group. I know it's weird to think of a horror novel as being about friendship, but It really is, much like Stand By Me (although the novella is called The Body).
ReplyDeletekatetowery(AT)gmail(DOT)com
Well, the friendship I most remember as a kid was not between people, but between animals. Who can forget when Wilber the pig's life is in danger and a beautiful spider named Charlotte saves him by writing words in her web "that pig" "terrific" "radiant". A beautiful friendship indeed straight out of Charlotte's Web!!!
ReplyDeletecaribousmom (at) gmail (dot) com
I don't remember the specific moment in the book but one of my most favorite friendships in any book is between the two girls in Summer Sisters by Judy Blume. My best friend gave this book to me and those two girls in the book were so like us. I still love that book.
ReplyDeleteOne of my favourite friendships is well-established when canon starts, but the description of how it began gets me every time. This would be Lissa Dragomir and Rose Hathaway in the Vampire Academy books! Throughout the series, they have each other's backs and as both girls grow, their friendship grows and adapts too.
ReplyDeleteBut the moment is when they're in kindergarten and the teacher is trying to teach everyone how to write their names. Except Vasilisa Dragomir and Rosemarie Hathaway are names a little beyond a 5 year old. So Rose launches a book at the teacher in defense of her and Lissa, and a great friendship is born. I love it!
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I posted my choice earlier - here's Dave's:
ReplyDeleteRoland of Gilead and Jake Chambers from Stephen King's Dark Tower Series. Their friendship begins at Jake's death and grows through seven volumes of travels through Midworld. Even when they were in separate worlds, they couldn't live without one another. It's a unique and strong bond that culminates in Jake's death (again) when Jake sacrifices his life to save Roland.
My favorite friendship-forming moment (and since I'm reading Harry Potter & tOoP it's appropriate) was in Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's Stone. The troll was in the girls' bathroom and was about to attack Hermione, when Ron and Harry showed up just in the nick of time and saved her. From that point on, the three were inseparable friends.
ReplyDelete(This is Mia, also from Nisaba Be Praised. The comment above mine is Jessica, one of my co-bloggers.) I'm going to go with the friendship between Lirael and The Disreputable Dog in Lirael, by Garth Nix. Their relationship is funny and surprisingly touching, and the Dog helps Lirael overcome her fears and get out into the world and fulfill her destiny as Abhorsen.
ReplyDeleteThe friendship I recently read about was Pearl and May in Shanghai Girls and Dreams of Joy. Technically they are sisters, but after the heartaches they survive together, the life of lies they must maintain as they do what is right for baby Joy as they raised her---all the way through to rescuing Joy from China during the horrific time that was known as the Great Leap Forward--they managed to forgive each other and I believe were friends as well as sisters.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite old classic is Little Women by, Louisa May Alcott .. the friendship Jo and Laurie had was very special. Although Laurie wants to take things to another level with Jo at first, he realizes it is best not to ruin their relationship by forcing a romance.
ReplyDeleteSuzanne
Sheila's is way better than mine! Oh well. I like Bailey and Poppet in The Night Circus. They're just precious. I said a little more at my blog.
ReplyDeletelauraashlee@gmail.com
I love the friendship between Sara and Becky in A Little Princess. When Sara lost her father and was forced to live in the attic and work as a servant girl, Becky and Sara became really close and they were all each other had for a while. I loved how they would come up with secret codes by how they would knock on the wall separating their room and how they would imagine these great, elaborate fantasies together to escape their harsh life for a little bit.
ReplyDeleteklamber1 at unca dot edu
I don't remember the specific moment Jess and Leslie become friends, but my favorite friendship is in the book "Bridge to Terabithia". The friendship between Jess and Leslie grows as they go to "Terabithia" and does not end even when one of the friends dies.
ReplyDelete*sigh* I was going to do the Harry Potter one too, but I want to be creative now and come up with something different.
ReplyDeleteOkay, I got one. In Wizard's Holiday by Diane Duane, I loved Dairine and Roshaun's rivalry turned friendship. I don't remember if there was a specific moment in the book where they stopped despising each other and became friends, but it was fun.
Don't you just love the friend ship between Sabrina and Puck from the sister's Grimm. A bitter war of love and hate they so destine to be together i just know they will get married some day!
ReplyDeleteAnthony
Great challenge, and great example with Anne and Diana. Such lovely books.
ReplyDeleteMy example is from a book I've read for the challenge: the friendship between Charlie, Patrick and Sam in The Perks of Being a Wallflower. They take care of each other, are honest with each other, and grow together over the year the book covers. Just a beautiful and strong friendship that survives both big and small events.
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Don't laugh, this is cheesy, but all through my youth I loved the Baby-Sitters Club books, and I loved the friendship those girls had. I absolutely adored those books!
ReplyDelete@Kate The losers club and The body! Totally agree and The body was the first thing that came to my mind - followed quickly by the losers club!
ReplyDeleteI can't think of the specifics right now as my brain seems to made of some variety of pudding, however, I love the friendship that eventually forms between Anne Frank and Peter van Pels in the Secret Annex.
ReplyDeletecrissyfleetwood@gmail.com
I loved the friendship between Arnold and Roddy in The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie. I liked that even when they fought and it seemed like the love was gone they were still best friends at heart. Kids can be cruel and it was nice to the see the friendship survive.
ReplyDeletestacybooks at yahoo
What a lovely challenge!
ReplyDeleteWhen you mentioned Anne of Green Gables {one of my all-time favs} it made me think of Betsy-Tacy and the friendships all throughout that series.
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