Enemy Pie Book Review & A Friendship Lesson
Need a friendship lesson for your grade? This Enemy Pie read aloud is perfect!!!!
Enemy Pie is a wonderful picture story book for young children who struggle with friendship issues or feelings of exclusion.
It's a heartwarming and engaging story that's narrated by the main character, a young boy who has a problem with the new kid who moved into the neighborhood. The story delivers a powerful lesson about friendship and the importance of not jumping to conclusions about people before you know them.
Enemy Pie Story Summary
The boy was looking forward to a great summer, until Jeremy Ross came to town.
After laughing at him when he struck him out at baseball and not inviting him to his trampoline party, Jeremy Ross became the first person on the boy's enemy list.
He talked to his dad about his problem. His dad said he has a sure fire but secret way of getting rid of enemies. Enemy Pie!!
More...
The boy is excited by the prospect of his enemy's hair falling out or his breath turning bad but there's more to the secret plan than just pie! His dad says the key to the plan is that he had to spend the entire day playing with Jeremy if he wanted to get him off his enemy list!
After a pretty fun day hanging out with Jeremy, the boys go inside to have dinner. As dad serves up the much-anticipated enemy pie his son starts to panic. He has to stop him from eating the pie and being poisoned or something because Jeremy's actually not that bad after all!
After dinner, Jeremy invites his new friend to his house to play on his trampoline the next morning and the boy realizes that he's just lost his best enemy!
Lessons
I love how relatable and fun this book is, even for adults. We've all had times when we've jumped to conclusions about someone, thinking they didn't like us or they were a bad person. We've based our judgement on a few impersonal interactions without really getting to know them, just as the boy did with Jeremy.
It also highlights the importance of being assertive when making friends or wanting to be included in activities. Kids can't always take it for granted that someone's going to invite them to play. Sometimes they have to step outside their comfort zone and approach the other person.
Spending the day with Jeremy gave the boy the time he needed to discover they actually had a lot in common and that Jeremy was a pretty nice guy.
The main lesson is a good one. It turns out the best way to get rid of an enemy is to make them your friend!
How to use Enemy Pie in the classroom
There are a lot of great discussions that can be initiated after reading this book. So many wonderful lessons about judgement, inclusion, kindness, friendship, and respect.
This is a wonderful book for building community and addressing unkind behavior in the classroom. In my view, this is a must have in your classroom as it tackles so many important and very real issues around friendship and bullying for kids.
We love great books with powerful lessons. If you've used one in your classroom that your students loved, please email to write a review for us.
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AUTHOR: Lisa Currie - Ripple Kindness Project
Lisa is the founder of Ripple Kindness Project - community project, educational resources, and outreach program. Passionate about improving wellbeing and reducing bullying for kids in primary and elementary school, she developed a whole school, evidence-based SEL, kindness and mindfulness curriculum. She is also the author of stand alone character-building lesson plans and activities that are available on Teachers Pay Teachers.