A Century of Friendship by Littlebeanseeds

The Synopsis:

It is a story about friendship and adventure……
Have you ever wondered how long a friendship can last? If you ask Helen Macland, she will tell you, “More than a person’s lifetime.”
You say, “Is that possible?”
“Yes, if you meet Hollace William,” she will reply.

I received this book from the author for the purpose of this review. All comments and opinions are entirely my own.

Review:

A Century of Friendship is a short story written for preteens to illustrate the characteristics and aspects of true friendships.

This fantasy story follows Helen and her three friends during summer camp and what happens when they wander off into the woods to find an old cottage.

Because this is a short story (about 40 pages) there isn’t a lot of depth as far as world building or character development, however I did find myself intrigued with the dynamics of the parallel dimension aspect of the story and could easily see this as being turned into a full length book.

However, the purpose of this story is not so much as to entertain, as it is to show the value of friendship. In between each chapter, there is a “Friendship Note” in which the author summarizes the aspect of friendship illustrated in that chapter and challenges the readers to reflect on their own friends and relationships. And while I did enjoy the story, as well as this unique layout, I can’t say that I agree with some of the ways the author illustrated certain friendship aspects.

With there not being enough time to really get to know the characters’ personalities before jumping into the story, in the first chapter I had thought that one of the “friends” was actually going to be a bully because of how she treated the others, so I was immensely surprised when I read the first “Friendship Note” and realized that her bossing and pushing the quiet friend to do what she wanted was actually an illustration of “accepting your quirky friends”. After finishing the book, I can see and understand completely what the author intended and I can see how it would illustrate it now, but at first, it really threw me off since I had no context. There were several other examples of me reading things different than the author meant it as well, but I don’t feel like it’s necessary to list each one.

Overall, after finishing A Century of Friendship, I can say that I liked it, however I think that it could be improved a bit in the first half of the book so that readers don’t misinterpret the author’s goals as I did. So I’m going to give it 3 out of 5 stars.

Also, it’s void of cursing, all sexual content, and there is no action/gore. Only few mentions of magic.