The Friendship Lie

July 1, 2019

Gr 4-7-Emotions take center stage in this book about friendship, misunderstandings, jealousy, and depression. Sybella, a biracial black/white girl, met white twins Cora and Kyle in the second grade and they have been best friends since. Now that they are in the fifth grade, their friendship has fallen apart. The story is told in flashbacks leading up to the present time, where readers find out how they met; how Sybella intuitively and naturally understood and fit into the twins' make-believe world of "Aquafaba"; how the threesome were further brought together by their parents all working at UC Berkeley; and how a new-and very pushy-student is now forcing her way into their tight- knit group. The events all take place against a background where the twins' parents, both garbology scientists, have just divorced. The story is told mostly through Cora's third-person perspective, though Sybella's viewpoint is also presented to show how easily misunderstandings can take root. The ending, along with an old diary documenting a lost friendship, seem contrived and too pat. VERDICT Though all the elements of a good story are present, they don't add up to a satisfying one.-Lucia Acosta, Children's Literature Specialist, Princeton, NJ

Copyright 2019 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 15, 2019
Donnelly uses the backdrop of environmental awareness and real locations in San Francisco to convey the sheer exhaustion of emotional labor. Eleven-year-old Cora Davis and her twin, Kyle, both white, formed a tight triad with fellow 11-year-old Sybella Seward, who is biracial black/white, back in second grade based on their shared birthdays, their parents' professional camaraderie at UC Berkeley, and Sybella's intuitive understanding of the twins' imaginary world of Aquafaba. It's so strong that teachers at Thurgood Marshall Elementary remark that they need to make other friends. But their triad becomes an involuntary quad in fifth grade with increasingly pushy, bragging Marnie Stoll, a white female transfer student. Sybella seems to befriend Marnie, and Cora becomes increasingly passive-aggressive as her jealousy mounts and the kids become involved in a school sustainability project. That introverted Cora is also dealing with her parents' divorce and signs of possible depression exacerbates the falling-out. A good portion of the book consists of laborious flashbacks establishing how the characters got to this point. Though the author matter-of-factly describes the interracial camaraderie among the characters, she also commits the tiring, United States-old mistake of forcing the only girl of color to use her emotional maturity and intelligence to manage the two white girls' immaturity and emotional issues. Sybella's third-person perspective only occasionally punctuates Cora's tightly focused narrative, compounding the problem. A bad look indeed. (Fiction. 10-13)

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July 1, 2019
Grades 4-7 Fifth grade has been hard for Cora Davis. She and her best friend, Sybella, aren't speaking; and in the wake of her parents' recent separation, her mother moves to Europe, leaving Cora and her twin brother in Berkeley with their university professor father. The spat with Sybella has disturbed Cora the most, and their strained friendship finally ruptures during their school's Earth Day celebration when Cora and Sybella reach for the same diary in the Trash Sorting event. Each girl gets one half of the diary and wonders about what the other part contains. It takes a visit to Aunt Lake's (an old friend of Cora's dad) to begin to unravel the diary's story and rebuild their friendship. Donnelly begins the narrative in the present before backtracking to show the progression of events, all the while alternating the narration between the two girls' points of view. The diary's contents are interjected within the main story, amplifying the themes of friendship and family in a unique way.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)