The Friendship War

The Friendship War
Andrew Clements
Random House, 2019 173 pages
Grades 3-6
Realistic Fiction/School Story

You've heard of Baseball Fever, Tulip Fever, and Chocolate Fever. Now introducing--Button Fever! While visiting her Grandfather in Massachusetts, Grace discovers cases of old buttons in an abandoned factory. Grandpa sends them to her home across the country, where she incorporates some of them into a project about the Industrial Revolution in America. Kids become interested in the buttons and the next day bring in some of their own. Grace and her classmates begin to trade buttons and before long, the fad has swept the school and the younger grades also get caught up in the madness. Grace's best friend, Ellie, always has to be the best at everything. Ellie sets out to prove that she has the best buttons and begins to create button jewelry to step up her product. A battle ensues and the friendship is over. Grace begins to hang-out with classmate Hank, who is a button expert, and the two step-up their collections. Grace is enjoying her friendship with Hank, only she begins to miss Ellie. Can they find their way back to friendship? Does she want to be friends with Ellie in the first place? Most of all how can she get the kids in her school to think about something besides buttons?

The king of the school story, Andrew Clements, does it again while tapping into another childhood phenomenon: fads. I'm no stranger to fads. As a children's librarian and mother I've seen everything from pods to silly bands to fidget spinners. One of the fads of my childhood, slime, has officially resurfaced in a new generation who now creates and sells it, stepping it up from the green only variety of my childhood that came packaged in a garbage can. I have never personally experienced a button fad, but it makes perfect sense. Most households have buttons, so they don't cost anything to collect. That said, Clements points out that some buttons are worth money. In an author's note he traces his inspiration to his own boys, giving the novel a personal connection. Kids will enjoy this story and possibly start a button collection of their own. Other themes include how to be a friend, standing up for yourself in a positive way, and finding ways to heal after a death. Another layer includes a lesson in basic economics, featuring supply and demand, and social-psychology, as Grace pays close attention to crowd behavior with the creation of the fad and her attempts to thwart it. Not everything goes as Grace expects, but she emerges from the rubble holding onto that which is most important.