The Secret Language Of Girls

Keenly insightful and poignantly hopeful, this novel explores the shifting terrain of the friendship of sixth-graders Kate and Marylin, capturing the awkward dance of two best friends trying to find common ground as they grow up.

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.