Friendship First

Despite modern technology and the ample ways we have to keep in touch, we risk neglecting our relationships with the people who have the most profound effect on our well-being: our friends. Weaving together personal stories, interviews with experts, and social research, Friendship First empowers you to nurture relationships with friends both new and old.

A true friend is a paradox—both a mirror and a mystery, a presence that steadies yet unsettles. Emerson's Friendship is not a sentimental tribute but an exploration, as sharp as it is reverent. He does not merely celebrate companionship; he dissects it, questioning the forces that draw souls together and the invisible tensions that hold them apart. Friendship, in Emerson's vision, is not mere comfort—it is a force, a demand, a test. It requires space as much as closeness, silence as much as words.

In this candid and emotional memoir, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff takes you into Trump Tower and the White House to tell the funny, thrilling, and heartbreaking story of her intimate friendship with one of the most famous women in the world, a woman few people truly understand. How did Melania react to the Access Hollywood tape and her husband’s affair with Stormy Daniels? Does she get along well with Ivanka? Why did she wear that jacket with "I really don’t care, do u?" printed on the back? Is Melania happy being First Lady? Wolkoff has some ideas....

Bonnie is nervous for her first day of kindergarten, but her new friend Forky has an idea! Listen along to this fun audio story as Forky makes sure Bonnie has a great first day.

Sofia is too busy to play with her friend Clover the bunny! So, Clover decides to run away and become the star of a magician’s act. But life on stage doesn’t turn out to be as great as the bunny imagined. Listen along to this fun audio story as Sofia and Clover find their way back to each other.

It’s the night before Death-Cast goes live, and there’s one question on everyone’s mind: Can Death-Cast actually predict when someone will die, or is it just an elaborate hoax? Orion Pagan has waited years for someone to tell him that he’s going to die. He has a serious heart condition, and he signed up for Death-Cast so he could know what’s coming. Valentino Prince is restarting his life in New York. He has a long and promising future ahead and he only registered for Death-Cast after his twin sister nearly died in a car accident.

Thirteen-year-old Annabelle struggles in school, no matter how hard she tries. But as soon as she dives into the pool, she's unstoppable. She's the fastest girl on the middle school swim team, and when she's asked to join the high school team over the summer, everything changes. Suddenly, she's got new friends, and a high school boy starts treating her like she's somebody special - and Annabelle thinks she'll finally stand out in a good way.

The city of Ember was built as a last refuge for the human race. Two hundred years later, the great lamps that light the city are beginning to flicker. When Lina finds part of an ancient message, she's sure it holds a secret that will save the city. She and her friend Doon must decipher the message before the lights go out on Ember forever! This stunning debut novel offers refreshingly clear writing and fascinating, original characters.

Lilly Dancyger always thought of her closest friendships as great loves, complex and profound as any romance. When her beloved cousin was murdered just as both girls were entering adulthood, Dancyger’s devotion to the women in her life took on a new urgency—a desire to hold her friends close while she still could. In First Love, this urgency runs through a striking exploration of the bonds between women, from the intensity of adolescent best friendship and fluid sexuality to mothering and chosen family.

Raised by her literary icon father Carson Wells, Allison Wells always felt loved, even though her mother died when she was a teen. But when she takes a DNA test on a whim and discovers she has a sister that she’s never heard about before, it’s clear there are things her father never told her before he died. Determined to meet Juniper—her half sister—and unravel the truth of what happened all those years ago, Ali finds herself taking a job as Juniper’s intern.

In spite of the hyper-connected culture we live in today, women still feel shamed for oversharing and being publicly vulnerable. And no matter how many friends we seem to have, many of us are still desperately lonely. Laura Tremaine, blogger and podcaster behind 10 Things to Tell You, says it's time for something better. Openness and vulnerability are the foundation for human growth and healthy relationships, and it all starts when we share our stuff, the nitty-gritty daily details about ourselves with others.

Welcome to Butterbean’s Café! In Nickelodeon’s new animated series, Butterbean and the rest of her fairy friends run a bakery, make delicious treats, and have magical adventures.

Gavin hates riding the bus. Max, the bus bully, is always picking on him. But when Max is gone for a few days, Gavin starts to worry. Does Gavin actually miss the bus bully?

It's August 1999. For twelve-year-old Michael Rosario, life at Fox Run Apartments in Red Knot, Delaware, is as ordinary as ever—except for the looming Y2K crisis and his overwhelming crush on his sixteen-year-old babysitter, Gibby. But when a disoriented teenage boy named Ridge appears out of nowhere, Michael discovers there is more to life than stockpiling supplies and pining over Gibby.

Fiona's new school doesn't have an ice hockey team, just field hockey! She decides to try out for field hockey anyway, but the sports have different rules. Will Fiona be able to stay on the team if she doesn't learn the rules?

Enjoy six books from this hilarious young graphic novel series, adapted for audio, about Pizza and Taco. Two best friends, lots of toppings...but only one of them can be the BEST, right? Fans of Narwhal and Jelly will eat this book up...and be hungry for more!

It’s gloriously sunny in Cornwall as the school year starts at the little boarding school by the sea. Maggie, the newest teacher at Downey House, is determined to make her mark. She’s delighted by her new teaching job, but will it come at the expense of her relationship with her safe, dependable boyfriend Stan? Simone is excited and nervous: she’s won a scholarship to the prestigious boarding school and wants to make her parents proud. Forced to share a room with the glossy, posh girls of Downey House, she needs to find a friend, fast.

Mia knows her family is very different than her best friend's. In the 1980s, the coastal fishing town of Prince Rupert is booming. There is plenty of sockeye salmon in the nearby ocean, which means the fishermen are happy and there is plenty of work at the cannery. Eleven-year-old Mia and her best friend, Lara, have known each other since kindergarten. Like most tweens, they like to hang out and compare notes on their crushes and dream about their futures. But even though they both live in the same cul-de-sac, Mia’s life is very different from her non-Indigenous, middle-class neighbor.

It’s been a year since eighteen-year-old River Lang’s best friend died in a car accident. And every day since, he’s had to pass by the depressing billboard that appeared as a result: a texting and driving PSA that reduces Dylan to a cautionary tale and River to the best friend of the dead kid at school. Dylan was so much more than a statistic, though, and River hates that everyone in town seems to have forgotten. When he’s caught improving (a.k.a. vandalizing) Dylan’s billboard, River is blackmailed into joining the Affinity Trials.

Finally, it's summer! Stephanie—aka Slimey—has been counting the days until she can return to her favorite place in the entire world, Camp Rolling Hills. And this year she's especially happy to be back—she'll have eight blissful weeks away from home, where life has been decidedly rocky. New kid Bobby, on the other hand, is pretty sure he's in for the worst summer of his life. He does not understand his weirdo cabinmates, the group singing, and the unfortunate nicknames. But he does understand Slimey, and the two soon fall in crush. This summer might not be so bad after all!