This appealing retelling of an animal fable from Tanzania, with its engaging narrative and gorgeous, stylized illustrations, was the winner of the Bologna Ragazzi New Horizons Award in 2005. Established to highlight achievements in the field of children's literature from Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East, the New Horizons Award promotes new and innovative voices and artists, and John Kilaka certainly qualifies!

A tale of friendship, betrayed trust, repentance, and finally reconciliation, True Friends follows the story of Rat, an industrious individual who also happens to be the only animal capable of making fire, and his friend Elephant, a rather lazy fellow who decides to steal Rat's food supply, when times becomes tough. The resolution of this tale, without violence or undue harshness, teaches an important moral lesson: that the wrong-doer's greatest punishment is the loss of his peace of mind. Well worth the time of any reader who enjoys animal folktales, or appreciates colorful art. I know I will be looking for more of Kilaka's work! ( )

This book is a book about trust and friendship. This would be a good book to read to students the first week of school. It is important to have trust in a friendship in order to continue to stay friends. Very enjoyable story! ( )

True Friends is a book about how friends should treat each other, but this book consists of animals. It is about a village of animals, but the main characters are the elephants and the rat. When the village goes dry and there is no grain Elephant decides to steals his best friend, Rat’s food. Rat gets angry when Elephant doesn’t want to give rat back his food stating that he needs more food than Rat. So Rat leaves and the entire village gets mad at Elephant, and they won’t support him. So Rat comes back, but by that time Elephant set out to find Rat. Rat takes back his grain and Elephant returns weeks later. He gains to courage to apologize to his best friend, and the entire village is happy again. ( )

"True Friends" is a good book for children and adults to read and enjoy it.The book tells children about the true friends. Children will recoginze how they act and treat their friends when times are hard. They learn how to love and to forgive someone when he or she did something wrong.

In this charming Tanzanian folktale, Elephant tricks his friend, Rat, into giving him all of his rice. Rat disappears and Elephant wonders what happened to him and how he might seek revenge. The book teaches a great lesson on friendship and loyalty without being too preachy. The text is a little dry at times. ( )