Goodbye Emily, Hello

Shy Robin has followed and relied on her rough-and-tough friend Emily ever since first grade--but a camping trip teaches her to rely on her own strengths

Grade 6-9-- A finely tuned story of friendship, changing relationships, and self-discovery. Robin first meets Emily just before she enters first grade, and from then Emily dictates Robin's decisions, interests, dress, and ideas. It is only when they enter ninth grade that Emily casts her off for a more popular group. In the end, though, it is Robin to whom Emily turns when she is in trouble. The friendship comes full circle, from its tentative beginnings, to termination, and finally to renewal, but not on the same lopsided basis, for Robin has become her own person. Narration is first-person, but the tendency of this form to weaken such elements as characterization is transcended. Readers will be leaps ahead of Robin in seeing Emily as she really is, while Robin misses all of the clues that Emily has set her sights on far more important people. The contrast in characters is adept and sharp, their motivations clear. Only child Robin is fussy, fearful, timid, and afraid of change, while Emily is confident, brazen, and often mean. Derby deftly captures the fragile nature of an uneven friendship, and does it with subtlety, humor, and insight-- Trev Jones, "School Library Journal"
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The author of Visiting Miss Pierce writes realistically of the changes a "best" friendship undergoes as the two friends grow up. Quiet Robin never really understood why outgoing Emily, a tomboy and daredevil, wanted to be friends, but they have stood by each other through elementary and junior high. As freshmen in high school, though, Emily becomes popular and abandons Robin. Robin's parents had warned her to make other friends, and now she is forced to do just that, joining clubs that she formerly would have shied away from and, for the first time in her life, making her own decisions. At the end, Emily calls Robin in need of help, and Robin responds kindly--if only to show Emily that she will help because she wants to, not because she "has" to. Some vengeance-minded readers might have preferred that Emily get her comeuppance. Others who come across this book--with its delicate, drawn-from-life episodes--will find Robin's newly acquired dignity encouraging. Ages 12-up.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.