Throughout The Friendship War, big changes are triggered by seemingly small or insignificant things. In Chapter 7, after some students take buttons from Grace’s collection, she is puzzled and awed to find that “these completely ordinary little objects seem to be changing right in front of [her] eyes” (45). This concept applies to the buttons, as well as the relationships that surround them, Through the effect of the button fad on Grace’s friendships with Ellie and Hank, as well as how Grace’s activities help her grandpa, the novel explores the many different ways in which small things can bring about great changes.

Within this conceptual framework, it is clear that seemingly insignificant things cause the characters to question themselves. At the beginning of the book, for example, Grace realizes that she has felt uncomfortable in her relationship with Ellie for years, but before this moment, she has always shoved this thought aside unexamined. When Grace first obtains the buttons from her grandpa, they are something private, but once she brings them in to school for show-and-tell, they become a catalyst for the changes that her relationship with Ellie soon undergoes.