Lean on Me

“Lean on me When you’re not strong And I’ll be your friend I’ll help you carry on . . .” Lean on Me is an endearing children’s picture book that beautifully demonstrates the power of friendship, based on Bill Withers’s classic song of the same name. “Lean on Me” appeared on Withers’s 1972 album Still Bill. The song reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and ranked #208 on Rolling Stone’s “500 Greatest Songs of All Time” list. With Withers’s lyrics and illustrations by Rachel Moss, this picture book follows four close friends through the stages of their childhood, from elementary school until their high school graduation. Withers’s classic and loving refrain serenades them as they lean arm-in-arm into adulthood.