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The Kind of Friends We Used to Be

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About The Book

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 The Author

Photograph (c) Clifton Dowell
Frances O'Roark Dowell

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.

Product Details

  • Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers (January 6, 2009)
  • Length: 240 pages
  • ISBN13: 9781416950318
  • Ages: 8 - 12
  • Lexile ® 950 The Lexile reading levels have been certified by the Lexile developer, MetaMetrics®

Awards and Honors

  • Bulletin Blue Ribbon
  • CCBC Choices (Cooperative Children's Book Council)
  • Bank Street Best Books of the Year
  • NYPL 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing

Resources and Downloads

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More books from this author: Frances O'Roark Dowell

More books in this series: The Secret Language of Girls Trilogy