I enjoyed this book, however, I read it to my daughter. I wish there had been more pictures. I think the targeted audience would appreciate more illustrations, or maybe the target audience is older than I expected it to be based on the cover? Good book regardless.

'The Secret Forest Friends' by Kyoko Hara with illustrations by Kazue Takahashi is the follow up book to 'The Mailbox in the Forest,' but it works well as a standalone.

Summer is here and Mayu is going to visit her grandparents. She will also secretly visit Konta, the fox child, who lives in the woods nearby. A series of letters change hands and Konta helps Mayu with her summer homework. Mayu and her grandfather discover they share a secret.

This was a charming story with nice illustrations. I loved the letters and where the story went.

In this adorable sequel to "The Mailbox in the Forest," it's summer, and Mayu is excited about an upcoming visit to her Grandpa and Grandma's house. When she arrives, she hurries out to the forest nearby, and meets up with her friend Konta, a fox boy she befriended on her last visit, and who she's been exchanging letters with since her winter visit. One day, the two are playing in a stream when one of Mayu's new red sandals goes missing! Konta must be brave and go get Mayu's Grandpa to help, and we find out Grandpa had a secret forest friend when he was a child too. Such a sweet series! I'm looking forward to the next adventure hinted at in this story, taking place in the fall!

#TheSecretForestFriends #NetGalley

The Secret Forest Friends written by Kyoko Hara with art by Kazue Takahashi is an easy, charming, and magical read.

It is summer and second grader Mayu comes to stay with her grandparents who live near the forest. She is excited to see them and to explore nature. However, she is especially happy to reunite with her friend Konta the Fox. The two have been secretly exchanging letters with the help of Ms. Bird (an actual bird) who happily delivers Mayu’s letters to Konta’s forest mailbox. Once reunited, the children spend their days exploring. One day while Mayu and Konta are in the forest, Mayu loses her sandal. It’s up to Konta to venture out into the human world and save the day!

This is a lovely book! The storyline is simple and easy-to-follow. I definitely appreciate the timeless themes of friendship, building positive relationships with older members of the family, and appreciating nature. But, I think that this book is meant for older readers as there is too much to hold young kids’ attention. There are several characters and, although there are many illustrations, there is a fair amount of text.

I love the book’s gentle magic and charm. I especially love the focus on letter-writing. This is such a lost and beautiful art! I wish I had a secret fox penpal! I love seeing the depictions of the actual letters as well as the cute different stationeries and handwriting. I am also utterly charmed by Konta’s mailbox in the middle of the forest as well as kind Ms. Bird playing postlady for the kids.

Mayu and Konta’s lovely friendship is relatable and supportive. It’s sweet that Mayu saves her favorite old hat for Konta. I love that Konta doesn’t hesitate to help Mayu when she needs him. I also enjoyed the loving relationship between Mayu and her grandparents, especially the positive and supportive interactions between her and Grandpa.

Takahashi’s delightful illustrations are simple but effective. I like that there are both colourful and grayscale pictures as this variation adds fun and whimsy. Almost every page has an adorable little depiction. I particularly like the colorful rendition of Mayu getting a piggyback ride from Grandpa while Konta cheers as well as the gentle grayscale nature scene of the kids enjoying each other’s company. Konta with his little satchel and new hat is just darling!




🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳 out of 5 trees!

A beautiful book about having secret friends in the forest, and how difficult Mayu finds it is to maintain the friendship. Maya and Konta write letters to each other and they are there for each other when something awful happens.

Lovely illustrations and a book to treasure for years to come.

In this charming sequel to The Mailbox in the Forest, Mayu returns to visit her grandparents and see her friend Konta the fox again. When Mayu learns that she will be spending part of her summer vacation with her grandparents, she immediately writes to let Konta know. Their friend the bird serves as a letter carrier and makes sure that the message arrives safely. And once she arrives, Mayu learns that her grandfather had adventures in the forest when he was a child - giving them another thing in common.

This series is perfect for children who enjoy simple stories with relatable characters and problems that can be solved without too much heartache. The illustrations capture the quiet peace of the forest, the fun of playing in the forest with a friend, and the certainty of having loved ones to depend on. Kazue's style embraces the kawaii quality of being cute and adorable; Mayu with her beribboned hat and Konta with his satchel are definitely cute characters, and the scene of Grandpa giving Konta a piggyback ride is certainly adorable.

Another aspect of these stories is the use of letter writing. In the first book, Grandpa tells Mayu, "Letters are things that can bring you joy no matter how many times you read them." Mayu has taken that lesson to heart and she maintains her friendship with Konta through their letters. She even chooses to write to her grandparents rather than calling them about her visit, because she knows that Grandpa will treasure the letter.

For those looking for quiet stories to read together at nap or bedtime, or for those who love Frank Asch's Bear books, the Little Bear books by Minarik, or the Kuma-Kuma Chan series, this is a great choice to continue that feeling of adventures that are not too scary or boisterous.

What I really love about this book, beyond the friendship of a fox child and a girl, and how they exchange letters, is that it is not just about the girl and the fox child. It is more than that, in this second book in the series. Because her grandfather has also met fox children in the forest, and when Mayu gets in trouble, Konto, the fox child, has to go into the world that is not the forest, and get the grandfather for help. I love that the grandfather not only accepts that a fox child is asking him for help, but also remembers when he was young, and played with the animals of the forest.

Really sweet picture book.

<em>Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.</em>

A big thank you to NetGalley and Museyon for the eARC. I am voluntarily reviewing this book. This is a children's book. This is an amazing adventure. Every child's secret dream. To have a special forest friend that can show you around and tell you all the secrets. Mayu has a special bond with Kontu a fox. Great story 4 stars

Mayu likes to go visit her grandparents. They have a forest across from them and she has made friends there.
Museyon and Net Galley let me read the book for review (thank you). It has been published and you can get a copy now.

She has a fox friend in the forest and they write letters to each other.

She has a writing assignment for school and she's going to use forest flowers to make it stand out.

All is well until she loses her one of her brand new shoes. The creek took it off her foot.

Will she be able to find it?

"Letters are things that can bring you joy no matter how many times you read them." Mayu writes letters to her Grandpa and her special fox friend, Konta. The book is filled with sweet relationships, good habits and lovely letters between friends and family. This book brings back the important, lost art of letter writing and brought me a great deal of joy!

I received an ARC of, The Secret Forest Friends, by Kyoko Hara. I really enjoyed this book, it was good to see Maya, Kontu, and Maya's family. Such a sweet and touching story.

Sweet story for 2nd, 3rd graders as it is an easy fiction reader. Children who love animals will delight in reading this book. Mayu is a lucky girl to have found a forest friend when visiting her grandparents on winter vacation in the first book of the series! This second book, finds her visiting during summer vacation. With the help of her fox child forest friend, she finishes her summer school assignments and makes a couple really cool discoveries. I love the idea of the forest mailbox! Clever idea to stay in touch with forest friends! It's so nice to have a book about spending time with grandparents. Too often these days, it seems the generations rarely spend time together. Maybe this little book can help change that! I think children need to spend more time exploring the great outdoors, too. This book just might entice parents and their children to take sometime and visit our parks.
I can't wait until the next book! Gentle, imaginative tale for kids ready to read longer fiction tales.

The Secret Forest Friends is a beautifully written story with simple but very effective illustrations. I really enjoyed it.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for my ARC.

Mayu (learning Japanese), is returning to her grandparent's house for summer break, and she is very excited to visit the forest and her friends as well.

In book one, it was winter time; Mayu visited the forest for the first time by herself, and she met her pen-pal! They have been enjoying writing letters to each other since last winter's break.

Konta, is a "fox child" (a young fox), and the two "children" have become good and trusted friends. Their letters go by airmail; Ms. Bird (a robin), who is another friend.

In this book, when Mayu is stuck in the forest, Konta needs to go get her grandpa to help her. But Konta has never been outside the forest! It's dangerous! Will Konta have the courage? How will Mayu's grandfather react?

This is a cute book, sharing a love for the forest and a nostalgic fondness for written letters, no matter how short and simple. Paintings of different flowers (in the book margins) enhance the summer feeling. The rest of the forest is left to the reader's imagination.

4/5 Stars

Thanks to Museyon and NetGalley for the free preview of this ebook; the review is voluntary.

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This book is the second book in a series and continues a story about a little girl and her friend, a fox, who lives in the forest near her grandparent's house. They write letters to each other and play in the forest when she visits her grandparents. This book is a great tool to teach letter writing as there are lots of great examples (and even a detachable letter paper at the back) of letters. My only criticism is that the first letter in the story is written by the grandfather and to give it the appearance of being a real handwritten letter the author uses a cursive font. Unfortunately many children do not know how to read cursive and the letter is not typed out adjacent to it, so it must be read in cursive. I get that grandparents often write letters in cursive, and it is why I teach my students to read and write in cursive but I do find there are less and less teachers doing that today so I think using accessible fonts is important in children's books. Otherwise the main font is fairly easy to read and there are about 50-70 words per page. The book is approximately 80 pages long and has pictures on most pages. I think this would be a great step up from a typical picture book to a beginner chapter book when a child is starting to read for longer periods of time and wanting a longer story to follow. I would recommend this book to parents and teachers of children in the age 5-9 range. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for giving me the opportunity to read and review this book!

Bringing the art of letter writing to our children’s generation.

I wrote letters to my grandparents every few weeks. We didn’t have free long distance calling and so we were limited in how long we could talk to my grandma and grandpa when they left for Florida each winter. I would correspond with my grandparents, and they would send along funny comics or kids pages from their local paper. It was the highlight of my week to get a letter from my grandpa. I had a very special relationship with my grandfather and so this book is even more special to me.

“Letters are things that bring you joy no matter how many times you read them.” – after my grandfather passed, I found a folder with almost every letter I had written to him, and I have a number of letters that he wrote to me. It is wonderful to remember those special times and the special relationship I had with him.

This book is darling. The story tells of a special relationship between a granddaughter, Mayu, and her grandfather, kept alive through the art of letter writing. It is also a story of imagination and friendship, when Mayu makes friends with an adorable talking child fox Kantu.

I love the illustrations and style of Kazue Takahashi – soft, watercolors that are full of love and compassion. [I do so hope that Kantu and Kuma-Kuma could meet up one day 😊]

*Readers please take the time to teach your child how to write a letter- the blank letter at the end of the book is a great way to get started.

Grateful to have received a digital copy of this book from NetGalley & Independent Publishers Group, Museyon

The Secret Forest Friends is such a fun novel about Mayu and her forest friend Konta. I loved all the different letters featured in the book, it really added another level to the story. I loved the simple drawings, they were perfect for the story. I loved the friendship, as well as Mayu's relationship with her grandpa. A very sweet book!