Friends

Friends and friendship are usually an important part of middle grade and YA books, no matter what genre.

Making friends, keeping friends, helping friends (or being helped by them), singling out a best friend - if these aren't the main focus of the story, they're usually a subtheme.

With most of the middle grade stories I've read recently, the friendships are always centered around school.

How well does that reflect real life? Even keeping in mind the real life changes among generations?

I'm of the generation that was shooed outside to play on our own. Friendships developed around kids in the neighborhood, no matter what age. We didn't all go to the same schools, though, so most kids had a different set of friends at school. And then came home to play with the neighborhood friends.

Nowadays, parents arrange playgroups of kids around the same age, who may or may not live within a few blocks. Next is preschool, so another set of friends, again of the same age. School may separate out some friends and add new friends.

If books are to be believed, once you start school, you leave all your other friends behind and focus only on school friends. Is that the case in real life? Or is this just for the convenience of the story?

At what stage do friends become friends because of shared interests, rather than because of location? When I was in elementary and high school, I was the only one of my friends who read science fiction. I didn't make friends who shared my interests until long after I had graduated.

Some middle grade and YA stories list friends by their characteristics, rather than as a person. One friend is fashion-savvy, another is the sports expert, yet another is bookish while one likes to cook, etc. Just writing that sentence reminded me of the ponies in My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. Though I guess friends can be friends because they like each other, not for what they can do for each other or what interests they have in common.

What have you noticed about friends and friendships in middle grade and/or YA stories? What ones do you like?

It's here, the cover for my forthcoming YA novel, UNDER A PURPLE MOON. Have you ever seen a purple moon? If not before, you have now.

This is beautiful.

 



No Love in the Garden of Eden...

Eden Rose has learned to deal with her mother’s criticism that she can do nothing right. What she can’t deal with are the arguments between her parents. To escape their angry words, she finds refuge in an old abandoned house. She always returns home, hoping her mother will love her one day, even though Eden’s not sure what the word love means.

Three other teens with problems also hang out at the Old House. Meeting Murphy, Toby, and Josh changes Eden’s world, and she begins to have faith in herself. Perhaps she can do something right, after all.

Thanks to the boys, she begins to understand the meaning of love. But will it be enough to save her broken home life?

Release date - March 15, 2016

$17.95 USA, 6x9 Trade paperback, 270 pages

Freedom Fox Press - Dancing Lemur Press, L.L.C.

Fiction/Young Adult - General (JUV000000) / Girls & Women (JUV014000)

Print ISBN 9781939844132 eBook ISBN 9781939844149

$4.99 EBook available in all formats

Author Bio:

Most of the time, you’ll find Beverly Stowe McClure at her computer, typing stories little voices whisper in her ears. When she’s not writing, she’s snapping pictures of wildlife, flowers and clouds. She’s sometimes known as the “Bug Lady.” She’s not telling why.

Anni's Attic is the American version of Downton Abbey

Over the holidays I caught up on the first two seasons of Downton Abbey. I’m now watching the third season on PBS. I am totally hooked. I adore historical fiction. What I love most about Downton is its depiction of the cultural shift caused by war. Out of something so horrific comes a miraculous evolution in the human condition.

I got to thinking there should be an American version of Downton Abbey. After all, the Civil War drastically altered American culture and society. Lo and behold, the book was in my Kindle the whole time awaiting my attention. I just finished reading and reviewing Anni’s Attic by Anne McGee. I have a feeling there are some Downton Abbey fans reading this and I have just the book for you.

Anni’s Attic
By Anne Loader McGee
Vendera Publishing
November 2012
326 pages

The last thing 11-year old Jennine Nicòle Parkington wanted to do was live on an old cotton plantation in Georgia, and share a bedroom with Annise Loréal Bouvoir, la cousine terrible. But that was exactly what happened. After her mother died, Jenn was perfectly happy living with Grandmère and Grandpère in their New Orleans mansion while her father Phillip Parkington, a businessman from England, went about his international affairs. But the Civil War had changed everything. Southerners were choosing sides and Mr. Parkington had chosen to fight in President Lincoln’s Army. He told Jenn, “Believe me, living with someone your own age will be the best thing for you, especially now I’m going –”

Be that as it may, the two cousins had nothing in common. Jenn spoke French and took pride in her impeccable manners. Anni made friends with the Negro slaves and didn’t know the meaning of the word “etiquette.” In spite of their animosity, friendship sprouted and bloomed through four brutal years of the Civil War. Together Jenn and Anni shared secrets and adventures like all young girls. Then, as the war dragged on and closed in around them, the secrets and adventures became much more terrifying and dangerous.

Through the friendship of Jenn and Anni, the intertwining of the Parkington and Bouvoir families, and the politics of war, Anne McGee skillfully weaves Confederate and Yankee sympathies into this epic tale. McGee’s intricate details of Southern life during the Civil War Era transport the reader to another time and place. Anni’s Attic is the American version of Downton Abbey. Fans of the series will absolutely love this book.~ Copyright (c) 2013 by Peggy Tibbetts

Peggy Tibbetts
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