8 stories with fantastic unlikely friendships

I have always been a sucker for an unlikely friendship – humans making friends with humans is all very well, but a human moving past mistrust and suspicion to slowly build a deep and heartfelt friendship with a monster, or a giant robot, or a terrifying animal, or an alien, or a dragon? Now that’s more like it.

In my book, The Monsters at the End of the World, Sunny (human) and Mo (monster) are the heart and soul of the story, and they were inspired and influenced by my love of all friendships most unlikely. 

One of my childhood favourites, Skellig is about Michael, a ten-year-old boy who moves to a new house and finds a strange, ailing creature in his garage. 

Skellig is a wonderful character – ancient, world-weary and eerily magical, and the slow building of trust and friendship between him and Michael is the highlight of a beautifully atmospheric story. 

Who doesn’t wish they had a dragon? A Viking boy, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, captures and attempts to train a not-very-dragonish dragon, Toothless. 

An adventurous, fun and exciting book, but it’s also about understanding, empathy and being brave enough to stand up for what you believe in (in this case – and in most cases – dragons). 

A historical novel about Joseph, an angry and troubled boy who is sent to stay with the owner of a rundown zoo during the Second World War, and, after a bumpy start, develops a bond with Adonis, a silverback gorilla. 

I love the way Phil Earle never shies away from the terrifying power of Adonis, ensuring that Joseph respects Adonis’s wildness and strength, whilst still building to a finale that makes your heart soar. 

Inspired by Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Stitch and his friend Henry Oaf were created by a genius Professor, but when the Professor dies, they must navigate a new and not always welcoming world of strangers, new experiences and – perhaps – some unlikely friendships, to find where they belong.

As a bonus suggestion, I also love the many and gothically varied unlikely friendships in Padraig Kenny’s The Monsters of Rookhaven, but Stitch, in particular, captured my heart. 

Another gorilla, this time our narrator Sally Jones, whose loyalty to her friend the Chief – wrongly accused of murder – sends her on a globetrotting adventure, in which she must navigate exploitation, cruelty and constantly being underestimated.

Her fundamental goodness leads her to several unlikely friendships – my favourites with fada-singer Ana and accordion-maker Signor Fidardo. 

If there’s a trope I love almost as much as unlikely friendships, it’s robots learning what it means to truly live. In this story, the robot – Roz – wakes up on an island with no idea why she’s there. 

But as she learns to survive in the wild and amongst the animals who live there, her friendships – particularly with Brightbill, a newly hatched gosling she adopts – start to show her a path, and a purpose. 

A beautiful and gorgeously illustrated story about April, who moves with her father to an uninhabited island in the Arctic Circle, and there meets Bear – a polar bear, stranded on the island by melting sea ice. 

Climate change is, of course, a major theme in this book, but the story is warm and wild, and full of hope. 

My favourite book since I was ten years old! Set in an alternate London ruled by magicians and the magical spirits they enslave, I’m not sure you could strictly call the relationship between Bartimaeus – the wisecracking djinni (genie) at the heart of this story – and Nathaniel, the arrogant young magician who summons him, a ​‘friendship’, but it is my favourite part of this wonderful world. 

Though each sees the other as the villain, their (highly resentful) dependence on one another gets off to a brilliant – and hilarious – start in this first book in the trilogy. 

The Monsters at the End of the World by Rebecca Orwin is out now.