A Friend Is Someone Who Likes You was published by Harcourt, Brace & World in 1958. The book established Joan Walsh Anglund as a major figure in American children’s publishing and gift-book culture. Its premise is deceptively simple: a friend can be a person, a dog, a cat, a brook, or a tree — anything that responds to you and makes you feel less alone in the world.
Anglund’s illustrations feature her characteristic style: small, faceless (or nearly faceless) children with round heads and simple bodies, rendered in delicate pen lines with soft watercolor washes. The faces have only the suggestion of features — dots for eyes, perhaps a curve for a mouth — which gives them a universal quality. Any child (and any adult remembering childhood) can project themselves into these figures.
The text is brief — perhaps two hundred words total — but each statement carries emotional weight. The book’s genius lies in its expansion of the concept of friendship beyond the merely human: by including animals, natural features, and even the wind among possible friends, Anglund teaches children that connection and belonging are available everywhere, even in solitude.
The book sold over a million copies, was translated into numerous languages, and became a standard gift for children, new mothers, and friends. It established the template for Anglund’s career: books that functioned simultaneously as children’s literature and as adult gift books, addressing basic emotional truths in language that neither condescends to children nor embarrasses adults.
Collecting A Friend Is Someone Who Likes You
First edition (Harcourt, Brace & World, New York, 1958): Small hardcover, dust jacket with Anglund’s illustrations.
Market values:
- First edition, fine/fine: $40–$100
- Very good/very good: $15–$40
- Later printings: $3–$10