Product Description

In Love & Friendship teens expose their true thoughts and feelings about relationships.

This latest serving from the best-selling Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul series explores the topics nearest and dearest to your hearts: love and friendship. The adolescent years are challenging-our relationships with our family and friends are constantly being redefined and we start facing tough choices about the people we want to emulate and who we want to hang out with. New friendships begin as others fall by the wayside. Love interests come and go as quickly as the styles we wear. Moms and dads are ogres one day, best buddies the next.

Like other volumes in the Teenage Soul series, teen contributors share their thoughts and feelings on the issues that matter most to them. The stories in Love & Friendship candidly depict teens' feelings about breakups, forgiveness, love and kindness, their closest relationships and many other topics, from the happiest moments of their lives to the darkest days they struggle to put behind them. Chapter titles include: Falling in Love; Breaking Up; Friendship; Tough Times; Family and Love; Growing Up; Acts of Kindness.

You'll recognize their own experiences in these stories and learn valuable lessons about the true meaning of love and friendship. You'll discover that your own feelings are normal and that you're not alone. Love & Friendship will encourage you to examine your relationships and make the most of the time you spend with family and friends.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #33221 in Books
• Published on: 2002-10-17
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 300 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780757300226
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
Building on the success of 1997's Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul and its numerous spin-offs is Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul on Love and Friendship. Although adolescents may not like to eat what's good for them, the booming success of the series' previous books aimed at teens suggests they do like to read what's good for them. In this volume, Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen and Kimberly Kirberger share stories from teenagers about falling in love, breaking up, friendship, family relationships and more. The stirring anecdotes should hit home for many young women and men who are dealing with quandaries such as friends going off to college, falling for someone your best friend has a crush on, and losing a close family member. Canfield, Victor Hansen and Kirberger hope their readers see themselves in many of the stories and that they realize they "are not alone in the trials that come with any friendship or relationship."
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author
Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen, the #1 New York Times and USA Today bestselling coauthors of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, have dedicated their lives to the personal and professional development of others. Kimberly Kirberger is the coauthor of the bestselling Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul series, Chicken Soup for the College Soul and Chicken Soup for the Parent's Soul. In addition, she is the author of the Teen Love series, which includes Teen Love: On Relationships; Teen Love: A Journal on Relationships; Teen Love: On Friendship and Teen Love: A Journal on Friendship. She is also president of Inspiration And Motivation for Teens, Inc. (I.A.M. for Teens), a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting and helping teens, and cofounder of the Teen Letter Project, a nonprofit organization developed to handle the overwhelming outpouring from teens in response to the books in the Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul series.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
One Single Rose

It was Valentine's Day, my freshman year of high school. I was so young, the romantic type, and I longed for a boyfriend or secret admirer. I walked the halls seeing couples holding hands, girls with huge smiles on their faces, and dozens of roses being delivered to "that special someone." All I wanted was a rose. A single rose to brighten up my Valentine's Day. But I was picky. I didn't want the rose from my parents, my sister or even my best friend. I wanted it from a secret admirer.

Valentine's Day at school was over, and I had no rose to hang in my locker like I had hoped. I came home a little sad and hoped next year's Valentine's Day would be better. I sat in my room dreaming about next year's romantic Valentine's Day when the doorbell rang. There at the front door was a deliveryman delivering one single rose to my house. Surely this rose wasn't for me. I didn't have such luck. I closed the front door with a single rose in my hand and gave it to my mother. "Open the card!" she insisted when I told her it must be for her. I unsealed the envelope as my hands were shaking. Why were my hands shaking? I knew it wasn't for me. I slowly lifted the card and read what it said:

To Amanda From someone who cares

I must have read it twenty times in a matter of seconds, praying my eyes weren't playing tricks on me. But they weren't. The rose was for me. I must have been happy for about five minutes, until I started calling the obvious people and accusing them of sending me a rose and playing a joke on my hopelessly romantic heart. No one knew who sent it to me. My friends, family and relatives were as surprised to hear I got a rose from a secret someone as much as I was. I was on cloud nine for weeks. Every time in high school that I felt down, I would think about my freshman year's Valentine's Day and a smile would appear.

Senior year rolled around and the dreaded February fourteenth was once again upon us. That year I received at least six carnations (a carnation-selling fundraiser was held at school that year), all from my best friends. I walked around with a big smile on my face, holding my flowers. Even though they were just from friends, they made me happy.

The end of the day was drawing to a close, and I had two classes left to show off my flowers. I walked into my French class and noticed one of my closest friends, Kristen, looking upset. I had grown to know my French classmates pretty well, since I had spent three of my high-school years with the same people in one class. We'd turned into a little French family. Well, my friend saw me walk in with my six flowers and lowered her head with tears in her eyes. She hadn't received a single flower. Not even from her best friend.

We talked a few minutes before class, and some very familiar words came out of her mouth. "All I wanted was one single rose." My heart ached as I heard those words. The familiar sense of loneliness I had felt as a freshman, she was feeling now. I wanted to do something. It was too late to purchase carnations, and I couldn't get her anything on a break because school was almost over. Finally, I figured it out. My freshman year. The single rose. That was it; that was what I had to do. I told my mom about my plan and asked her if we could try to find a rose after our Valentine's dinner out. She remembered having seen a bucket of roses at a local drug store, so we rushed over and purchased the last good-looking rose and a small card. In order to preserve my identity, my mom wrote in the card what I dictated to her:

To Kristen From someone who cares

We drove to her house trying to be discreet. I ran up to the front door, put the rose in her mailbox, rang the doorbell, ran back to the car and drove away. All the feelings of happiness I had felt my freshman year came flooding back. I just kept thinking that I was going to make someone feel as special as I had three years earlier.

The next day in school, Kristen came up to me and gave me a hug with tears in her eyes. She had realized it was me by the handwriting. I guess my mom and I are more alike than I thought. She cried and said it was the nicest thing anyone had done for her in a while.

I never did figure out who it was who sent me that rose. But I did figure something else out. It didn't matter if it was a guy who secretly loved me who sent me that rose. What mattered was that it was from someone who cared about me and wanted to brighten up my day.

Amanda Bertrand

Customer Reviews

What the Teen Love Series should be
If you like Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul then you'll absolutely love this book! This is what the Teen Love Series on Relationships shoudl've been.

The book has stories written by teens as usual but it's a lot better than listening to the author ask questions all the time. Sorry to say but me being a teen, I don't learn from being lectured to all day, I learn from experience and this book details on others experiences that teaches me more than if my mom or dad were to sit down and lecture me on all of it.

It's very good and it takes after the Chicken Soup for the Soul books rather than the Teen Love series which I feel is much better. That means we get more mature stories written by older teens as well as younger so it's a great read for teenagers of all ages. Not just teens, but adults as well.

Love & Friendship - not quite as good as rest of the series
The Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul series is a wonderful series written by teens for teens and this book is a spin-off, if you like, of that very successful, popular series.

However, I found the stories and range of topics to be not quite as good as those found in the other teenage Chicken Soup books. The Friendship section had some beautiful stories in it as is to be expected from this series but I found some of the stores in other sections such as Growing Up to be cliched and boring. While I found it hard to put the other books down, this one was quite easy to put away.

If you are looking for a really good Chicken Soup book I would recommend Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul II or even the first or third books rather than this one. Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul - Love & Friendship lacks the same edge and originality as the other books.

Love and Friendship
Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul on Love and Friendship a great book for teenagers, because it is real life stories written by teens all over the U.S. The stories in this book are about relationships and dating, and friendships. Most of the stories in this book are very happy and give the reader tips about relationships with people, but there are also a few stories written by heart broken teens.
Every story in this book can help someone in some way because they either have a lesson to be learned or they are just great stories to read so maybe someday you can be like one of the teenagers in this book.
This is a book that can be read again and again by adults as well as teens of course, because many adults face some of the same problems as teens face when it comes to relationships. When ever you get a chance to read this book take it. Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul on Love and Friendshipis a book that you will not regret reading because this is such an awesome book!