Fall Is for Friends

by Suzy Spafford

What's more fun than jumping into a big pile of autumn leaves? Jumping into a big pile of leaves with your best friend.

Genres: Picture Books, Childrens, Animals, Friendship, Fiction, School, Holiday

30 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2003

Reviews

[Christopher Hicks · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fun children's book with colorful illustrations

[Mummy Cat Claire · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm vaguely familiar with Suzy Q or Suzy's Zoo. I picked up this book because of the topic of Fall leaves.

Suzy sees all the fall covers and wants to play in the leaves with her best friend Emily. But first, they have to find a way to get all the leaves off the trees. The girls set up a picnic to discuss their options. They start off with a cheer to excite the leaves to fall. Then they have arts and crafts time. The finally end with a cute song.

The illustration in this book is great. There are a lot of colors on each page. Suzy and Emily are always the focus but there is plenty of background to see.

This book would be great to discuss getting along with someone and being creative and working together to achieve a common goal. Sometimes it takes more than one try to succeed.

[Kathryn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've loved the Suzy's Zoo characters since I was a kid and this is such a cute, sweet story of friendship and imagination.

[Megan Denney · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fall is friends about two girls, Suzy and Emily. They are excited for the leaves to fall so they could play in them. However, the leaves have not fallen yet so they decide that they are going to help the leaves fall. First, they tried to cheer on the leaves to fall. Next, they cut out leaves and then tripped over one other and fell on the ground. They then tried to magic by casting a spell for the leaves to fall off the trees. They last tried to sing off the leaves and it worked! The girls then got to play in the leaves.

I would include this book into my library as I could use into my text set for talking about season changes as in the book the leaves are changing but have not yet fallen yet.

A teaching point for this book would be to discuss this book for the season of fall and have a discussion as to why the leaves have not quite fallen yet and what the process of leaves changing is.

[Primavera Olivia · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was such a cute book, I absolutely loved it! It was a great story about problem solving; a great skill for kids to learn. 2 friends came across a problem but didn’t give up when their attempts didn’t work. This is a great way to show kids to keep their heads up and try and try again. I would read this book to a group of kindergarten students to show them that it’s okay to fail as long as you don’t let it keep you down!

[Carly MJ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a cute fall story! Includes friendship and imagination and STEM!

[Martha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved the friendship and the imagination of the characters.

[Juana · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is such a cute book. As a fall lover I really loved all the fall colors and the leaves!

[Kimberly · Rating 4 out of 5]

*4

[Bre · Rating 3 out of 5]

A nice children's book.

[Ms.Theisen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cute story about friendship.

[Courtney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Spafford, S (2003). Fall Is for Friends. New York: Scholastic, Inc.

Illustrated by Suzy Spafford

This picture book is about Suzy Ducken and her best friend Emily's love of fall, especially jumping in piles of leaves. However, the leaves have not fallen, so Suzy and Emily think of many creative ways to try and help the leaves to fall for them to jump in them.

I loved this book, and it could be used for so many different things within a classroom, especially with children ages 3-7. You can use it during the fall season to discuss leaves, you could use this book to talk about colors, or to get the students thinking about ways they would have used to get the leaves to fall. I definitely would recommend this book to people of all ages to read as it is very heartwarming and makes one unable to wait for Autumn.

[Taylor Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

Suzy Spafford has created such a cute book for kids to read once the weather gets a little colder and the leaves begin to fall. She writes how friendship mixed with a little bit of imagination and brain power, can have a big effect. This book is great for read aloud to introduce fall and could be a favorite book for kids to build their imagination off of. This book could be used to begin a writing prompt, something like what you and a friend could do to get the leaves to fall from the trees. Loved this book!

[Genny Flett · Rating 3 out of 5]

Suzy and her best friend Emily love fall. Their favorite part about fall is getting to jump in piles of leaves. However, the leaves have no fallen yet, so Suzy and Emily try all sorts of things to get the leaves to fall from the trees (singing, spells, dressing as leaves, etc.). Finally, the leaves end up falling and Suzy and Emily celebrate by jumping in the leaves.

Such a cute story to use when talking about fall/season changes.

[Alissa Faust · Rating 4 out of 5]

Suzy and Emily love jumping in piles of leaves, but none of the leaves have fallen yet! The girls spend an afternoon trying various ways of getting the leaves to fall. Cute and clever ideas are presented that you may want to try out yourself! The illustrations of the Suzy's Zoo characters are darling as usual.

[Destiny Dawn Long · Rating 4 out of 5]

Two friends try to encourage the leaves to fall off the trees so they can play in them. A fun story about creativity, encouragement, and ingenuity.

The illustrations are cute and the language is age appropriate. My daughter and nieces loved listening to me read this one aloud.

I suspect I'll get requests to borrow this one from the library again.

[Valerie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great fall book. Can be made interactive very easily by shaking pom-poms, swirling a magic wand, scattering construction paper (or real) leaves. Toddlers, preschoolers, K-1 enjoy this read and the pictures carry well for a group read.
themes: friends, autumn, leaves, magic, fun

[Jaime · Rating 4 out of 5]

cute story about 2 friends who can't wait for the leaves to fall. Reminded me of raking leaves with Andrew in High School. Once we got a big pile it was quite fun to run and jump in them. Truman keeps waiting for a pile of leaves to jump in, but we don't have quite enough yet.

[N · Rating 3 out of 5]

2 gals longing to jump into a pile of leaves try to coax them into falling by cheerleading and magic spells among other ways.

[Elizabeth S · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very cute book about two friends who help "encourage" the leaves to fall in the Fall. Nicely done both on the story and the artwork.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Suzy Zoo and fall. Fun rhyming text.

[Tricia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Absolutely adorable Suzy Ducken loves fall. She and her friend Emily become concerned when the leaves aren't falling from the trees so they work together to help them along. Sweet and simple.

[June · Rating 4 out of 5]

2 friends can't wait to jump in leaf piles, so they try numerous things to try and encourage the leaves to fall. 10/17/11

Used this for both my preschool visits this morning & it was well received

[Jaime · Rating 4 out of 5]

My daughter Ella loves this book. She kept checking it out from the library and since it was out of print I bought a copy off of ebay! She was a very happy 3 year old!

[Rana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sweet little book about two friends who are very ready to play in the fall leaves that they try to convince the trees to hurry up and finish releasing all of their leaves.

[Savannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cute how they actually get the leaves to fall. If only this would've happened in my childhood. :]