• Age: 12 to 18
• Grade: 7 to 12

Friendships is a subtle and moving collection of stories about surprising moments of understanding from unlikely sources.

In “The Snake,” a girl faces her fears with help from a strange ally; in “Father by Mail,” a teenager writes down all the things he could never say to the parent who has left him behind; and in “Bruno,” a boy discovers a way to deal with a bully.

These perceptive and contemporary stories, by one of Canada's best-loved and award-winning authors for young readers, show struggling boys and girls making a connection with someone who can bring them to a kind of balance.

Budge Wilson (b. 1927) was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and lived in Kingston, Ontario, before moving back to North West Cove, Nova Scotia. A former commercial artist and photographer, she has written more than twenty books, many of them for children and young adults; her awards include the Ann Connor Brimer Award for children's literature. "Mr. Manuel Jenkins" is included in her story collecton The Leaving (Anansi, 1991).

Budge Wilson's profile page

Friendships: Stories

Friendships, Budge Wilson’s latest collection of short stories, will engage its teenage readers throughout. Each story tells of that epiphanic moment when a young individual gains a clear understanding of personalities and events which empowers him/her to change and grow, or to be truly present in that developmental moment. Readers will clearly identify their experiences of the family or schoolyard bully, of parent child miscommunication, of the angst that self-knowledge brings to one’s psyche and of the unfairness of life in so many ways. Wilson never sidesteps emotional or explosive issues in her work, and portrays her protagonists with respect, poignancy and affection.

While all the stories are engaging, two stand out. “Father by Mail” is a series of dated letters from a 16-year-old boy to his absent father, seeking answers to life’s mysteries and an explanation as to his father’s departure and continued absence from his life. “Justice” depicts the pain of a teenage girl who attempts to unmask the true nature of her heartless friend, only to discover that she unleashes something unattractive and heartless in herself.

This collection will appeal to both young men and women who are 12 years of age and older.

H Friendships

A moving collection of 12 stories about surprising moments of understanding from unlikely sources – by one of Canada’s best-loved and award-winning authors.