The Kind of Friends We Used to Be (The Secret Language of Girls Trilogy) - Hardcover

Dowell, Frances O'Roark

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1416950311 ISBN 13: 9781416950318

Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2009

Synopsis

Kate and Marylin are best friends forever....

Well, except for last year when they weren't friends anymore....

And except for this year when they both want to be friends again, but just don't know how.

But the thing is, even as they are trying to fix their broken friendship, they are becoming more and more unalike. And that's becoming harder and harder to deal with. Well, it would be a lot easier if Kate would just take some of Marylin's fashion advice. Ballet flats would look so much better than those big black combat boots. Feminine. But Kate doesn't want to be feminine. She wants to learn guitar and write her own songs; she wants to be the exact opposite of the middle-school cheerleaders. And maybe if Marylin would just stick up for herself and not get bullied by Mazie (the Meanest Cheerleader Ever) into judging anyone who's the least bit different, Marylin and Kate could be real friends again.

Funny, realistic, and incredibly insightful, Edgar Award-winning novelist Frances O'Roark Dowell explores the shifting terrain of middle-school friendship in the companion book to the well-loved The Secret Language of Girls.

About this title

About the Author

Frances O’Roark Dowell is the bestselling and critically acclaimed author of Dovey Coe, which won the Edgar Award and the William Allen White Award; Where I’d Like to Be; The Secret Language of Girls and its sequels The Kind of Friends We Used to Be and The Sound of Your Voice, Only Really Far Away; Chicken Boy; Shooting the Moon, which was awarded the Christopher Award; the Phineas L. MacGuire series; Falling In; The Second Life of Abigail Walker, which received three starred reviews; Anybody Shining; Ten Miles Past Normal; Trouble the Water; the Sam the Man series; The Class; How to Build a Story; and most recently, Hazard. She lives with her family in Durham, North Carolina. Connect with Frances online at FrancesDowell.com.

Reviews

Grade 5–8—This insightful sequel to The Secret Language of Girls (S & S, 2004) stands alone, but readers will want to go back and find out more about these engaging characters. Kate and Marylin used to be best friends, but sixth grade changed things. Now, as seventh graders, they are trying to work their way back to the way things "used to be." But it's not so easy when they are so different; Kate's new passion is the guitar—and her heavy black boots—while Marylin, a cheerleader, is determined to be feminine and popular at all costs. Alternating points of view make it easy for readers to relate to both girls as they navigate friendship, romance, and family relationships. Dowell gets middle-school dynamics exactly right, and while her empathetic portraits of Kate and Marylin are genuine and heartfelt, even secondary characters are memorable. A realistic and humorous look at the trials and tribulations of growing up and growing independent.—Laurie Slagenwhite, Baldwin Public Library, Birmingham, MI
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

This sequel to Dowell's The Secret Language of Girls follows Marylin and Kate as they start seventh grade on a tense note, having drifted from being BFFs to being neighbors who tiptoe around each other, unsure of what to say. The third-person perspective shifts between the two: Marylin learns that being a cheerleader means putting up with obnoxious snobs, and Kate develops an interest in songwriting. This even-handedness is both a strength and a weakness. Both girls are sympathetic but the constant switching back and forth between their various crises—Marylin's parents' divorce; Kate's anxiety over a cute boy in her creative writing club—means neither girl's story gets substantial treatment. It's more a slice of middle school life, kept afloat by Dowell's smart insights into the way the middle school mind works. The territory is familiar, but for girls on either end of a friendship whose contours keep changing, Dowell's treatment will act as a balm. Ages 8–12. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Dowell’s The Secret Language of Girls (2005) traced the gradual unraveling of the friendship between two suburban sixth-grade girls. This sequel follows Kate and Marylin into seventh grade and shows the girls accepting both the distance between them and the comfort of having a trustworthy friend when you really need one. As in the last book, Kate is the more self-possessed one, though she is not without doubts or worries as she pursues her studies and songwriting. Marylin deals with divorced parents and cheerleading peer pressure but soon finds her own way in student government. Dowell’s light but observant style reveals the benefits of not judging anybody—including yourself—too quickly. Grades 4-7. --Abby Nolan

Edition details

• Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1416950311
• ISBN 13: 9781416950318
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 240