Getting By: With A Little Help from My Friends by John Lennon and Paul McCartney

DO YOU NEED ANYBODY?

A curly-haired girl sits alone on the double seat of a schoolbus.

Another girl sits alone on the other end of the bus.

Both of them clearly need a friend. But how to begin?

They find themselves eating alone at a table in the lunchroom.

DOES IT WORRY YOU TO BE ALONE?

Slowly the two move nearer to each other each day until they talk and  begin to share things together--skating, painting, climbing trees and flying kites together, roasting marshmallows together, and singing along together.

I GET BY WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM MY FRIENDS.

John Lennon's and Paul McCartney's famous song is beautifully set in a story of childhood friendship in With a Little Help from My Friends Little, Simon and Company, 2019), all with the help of notable children's artist Henry Cole in this gentle and sweet story of the need for friends. Cole uses soft water-colored illustrations of two girls who build a friendship together, one that endures and sustains them even after one moves away. This lovely book is a good way to introduce the music of the Beetles and can be shared with Lennon and McCartney's All You Need Is Love, John Lennon's Imagine, Ringo Starr's Octopus's Garden and Paul McCartney's recent grandfather tale, Hey Grandude!