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 Medal; the Phineas L. MacGuire series; Falling In; the critically acclaimed The Second Life of Abigail Walker; Anybody Shining; Ten Miles Past Normal; Trouble the Water; the Sam the Man series; and The Class. She lives with her family in Durham, North Carolina. Connect with Frances online at FrancesDowell.com.

From School Library Journal

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
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Edition details

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