Country Girl, City Girl

December 6, 2004
Jahn-Clough's (On the Hill
) protracted tale centers on the friendship between two teens with dissimilar backgrounds. Narrator Phoebe, a friendless 13-year-old who lives on a Maine farm, wears her hair in braids and delights in reading fairy tales to her goat. Melita, a 14-year-old who sports stylish fashions and a purple streak in her hair, arrives from Manhattan to spend the summer on the farm when her mother (a college friend of Phoebe's late mother) enrolls in a clinic after a suicide attempt. The story assumes the sleepy pace of the girls' days: shutterbug Phoebe photographs Melita, Melita shows Phoebe how to apply makeup and they make plans to stage a fashion show in which they'll dress as fairy tale characters and "reidentify them as modern young women." Phoebe's infatuation with her friend takes on a new dimension when Melita teaches her how to kiss on the lips ("Like a fairy tale. I'll be the boy, the prince. You can be the princess"), during which Phoebe reflects, "I'm
kissing
... I'm kissing Melita
. And it was exciting." As she grapples with her confusion surrounding her feelings, Phoebe makes some credible reflections ("Is this what it meant to have a best friend? Were you supposed to want to kiss your best friend?"). She then contends with jealousy when she visits Melita in the city and learns she has a crush on a young French man. The author's descriptions of Phoebe's colliding emotions ring true and the girl's fervent desire to learn more about the mother she never knew adds a poignant note. Ages 10-up.