George doesn’t reprimand her: “But George never said ‘I told you so.’ Because that’s not what friends are for.” One of the most straightforwardly didactic G&M tales, “The Beach” (1973), describes how Martha refuses to wear sunscreen, despite George’s warnings, and turns a nasty shade of pink. Story Number 2: Friends never say, “I told you so” Much like real life, how they communicate or how much or little they say (or do) depends on the context of a given situation. Sometimes the resolution remains unspoken, or they work things out through actions. It fascinates me that George and Martha don’t always solve their differences through confrontation. Martha catches him in the act, confronts him, and then admits she doesn’t like the soup either. George is afraid to tell Martha that he doesn’t like her split pea soup, so he pours it into his galoshes. Take the very first story, “Split Pea Soup” (1972) (1). Many of these stories are about communication or miscommunication, compromise, and the travails of sharing life with another person. The same could be said about George and Martha.

They make you believe in the power of communion. figure out how to deal meaningfully with another human being. The only genre committed to letting relatively ordinary people. I recently read a New York Times article that praised the oft-maligned genre of romantic comedy because it is Story Number 1: Communication is KEY and contextual In true James Marshallian fashion, I’ve laid out five of the major lessons I have taken away from two decades of reading about these two great chums.

George and Martha never define their relationship we only know they are “best friends.” It doesn’t really matter if they are platonic, romantic, or somewhere in between because the lessons contained in the thirty-five stories have wisdom applicable to any close relationship. Each one is divided into five astonishingly economical yet profound mini chapters describing scenes from their lives. George and Martha are best friends (they are hippos) who star in seven picture books published between 19. I don’t think any work of art, literature, theater, or film captures a purer or more honest distillation of what it means to be a friend than the George and Martha picture books, written and illustrated by the incomparable James Marshall (1942-92).

George and Martha by James Marshall