The Secret Language of Girls

In the old days, when Kate had no interest in romance, she never cared what other people thought. Now, it appeared, love was turning her into a rotten human being.

Eleven-year-old Kate Faber wishes she could talk to her best friend Marylin about this. But Marylin is no longer her best friend. Or is she? Kate and Marylin had always been the kind of best friends who lived on the same block for their entire lives and who could agree on the kind of boys worth kissing (only movie stars) or who should be invited to their sleepover (definitely not Mazie Calloway or Elinor Pritchard). The kind of best friends who didn't need words to talk, but who always just knew.

But lately Marylin has started to think that Kate can be a bit babyish. And Kate thinks that Marylin is acting like a big snob. And a lot of the time, well, it feels as though they just don't know each other anymore. Somehow nothing is the same, but secretly Kate and Marylin both wish that it could be....

Edgar Award-winning author Frances O'Roark Dowell explores how far the bonds of true friendship can be stretched as Kate and Marylin struggle to navigate the inexplicable terrain of sixth grade.

Frances O'Roark Dowell, author of Dovey Coy, which was the winner of the 2001 Edgar Award, and Where I'd Like to Be, was born an army brat in Berlin, Germany, and has lived in the great states of Virginia, Kansas, Texas, Massachusetts, and North Carolina. She has pulled duty as a third-grade cheerleader, a Girl Scout, a junior varsity volleyball player, and a Killeen High School Keywanette. When she is not writing books or editing Dream/Girl: The Arts Magazine for Girls, she mostly hangs out with her husband, Clifton, and her two young sons, Jack and Will, in their home in Durham, North Carolina.