Highly readable and comprehensive, this volume explores the significance of friendship for social, emotional, and cognitive development from early childhood through adolescence. The authors trace how friendships change as children age and what specific functions these relationships play in promoting adjustment and well-being. Compelling topics include the effects of individual differences on friendship quality, how friendship quality can be assessed, and ways in which certain friendships may promote negative outcomes. Examining what clinicians, educators, and parents can do to help children who struggle with making friends, the book reviews available interventions and identifies important directions for future work in the field.

This clearly written and well-organized book has many of the features of a good friend. It is engaging, helpful, satisfying, and always interesting. It remembers the past and has an eye to the future. Researchers, clinicians, and students will find the volume an indispensable source of companionship and inspiration.--William M. Bukowski, PhD, Department of Psychology and Director, Center for Research in Human Development, Concordia University, CanadaGood news! This is the most comprehensive volume written to date about friendships in childhood and adolescence. The book has a clear-cut developmental point of view and deals with both friendship dynamics and the significance of friendships in individual lives. The authors also present compelling research applications as well as ideas for future research dealing with these relationships.--Willard W. Hartup, EdD, Regents' Professor Emeritus, Institute of Child Development, University of MinnesotaThis clear and authoritative book is a splendid resource for all those interested in children’s friendships—their drama and excitements, pleasures and problems. It covers a broad range of topics with exemplary thoroughness; where the research findings are inconsistent, the authors keep a sharp eye on the empirical evidence. The focus includes topics of clinical interest, such as attachment relationships, antisocial and aggressive behavior, deviance, and what is known from intervention studies. Most strikingly, the book highlights key questions raised by the research findings and by the gaps in what we know. This questioning approach makes it a stimulating read, of real value for upper-level undergraduates, graduate students, and their teachers.--Judy Dunn, PhD, Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College London, United KingdomThis beautifully written book illuminates the ordinary magic of children's and adolescents' friendships. The book integrates diverse theoretical perspectives and the sprawling research literature on friendship in an accessible, engaging manner, with lively examples all along the way. It will be of great interest to everyone who seeks to understand children's friendships: researchers, clinicians, students of social development, educators, and all who desire to foster positive relationships between young people. It is also well suited as a text for undergraduate and graduate courses on social development and seminars on friendship and close relationships.--Marion K. Underwood, PhD, Ashbel Smith Professor of Psychological Sciences, University of Texas at Dallas-_x000D_"A comprehensive and excellent volume?.This book shows constant quality. It is clearly written and provides an up-to-date and critical account of the research literature in a language that makes it suitable for use as a textbook as well. The reader is well-served with regular summaries within chapters and concluding paragraphs after each chapter, in which future research directions are pointed out as well."--European Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 7/1/2012