Country Girl, City Girl

by Lisa Jahn-Clough

Overview

Phoebe Sharp has long red braids. She wears old beat-up sneakers and clothes from Goodwill. She lives with her father and brother on a small farm in Maine, where she reads fairy tales to her goats and snaps pictures with her Instamatic camera. Phoebe doesn’t have a single friend, never mind a boyfriend—that is, not until she meets Melita.

Melita arrives at the Sharps’ farm in a see-through T-shirt and strappy platform sandals that show off her drawn-on “tattoo.” With her caramel-colored skin, stylish clothes, and urban attitude, Melita seems as different from Phoebe as two teenage girls could be. Through the summer, the girls grow to know each other. As their friendship develops, confusing feelings also begin to emerge. Could their friendship be deepening into something more?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780547223223
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	05/18/2009
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	192
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.60(d)
Age Range:	12 - 14 Years

About the Author

Lisa Jahn-Clough has written and illustrated many picture books for young children, including Alicia Has a Bad Day, My Friend and I, Missing Molly, and Simon and Molly Plus Hester. She is the author of the Green Light reader series Petal and Poppy and has published several young adult novels and a recent chapter book. She is associate professor of creative writing at Rowan University and also works as a mentor in the Hamline University Low-Residency MFA program in writing for children and young adults. You can find out more at lisajahnclough.com.

Editorial Reviews

Jahn-Clough shows insight into Phoebe's developing personality.
—Kirkus Reviews A shy unpolished girl in the throes of growing up having something to offer to a fashion maven will be a welcome idea to the many girls for whom glamour and popularity seem as distant as the moon.
—School Library Journal Smoothly told, with feminist sensibilities and references to Grimms' Fairy Tales, this novel engages readers with a fully developed protagonist who demands sympathy from her reader.
—VOYA (Voice of Youth Advocates) —

From the Publisher

Gr 7-9-Two girls thrown together by chance forge an exceptionally close friendship, and one has the courage to admit that for her it is more than platonic. Phoebe has grown up on a farm in Maine. During the summer before eighth grade, Melita, slightly older and worlds more sophisticated, comes to stay. Melita, child of a single, psychologically troubled mother, and Phoebe, child of a widower, are both lonely, although they express it differently. Glamorous Melita entrances shy, literary Phoebe, who likes being behind a camera. Together, they feed one another's imaginations and plan a feminist fashion show. After Melita returns to New York, Phoebe visits her. When she sees that her friend has a crush on a boy, she is forced to come to terms with her own feelings. Her range of emotions and the degree to which they drive her behavior are the most successful elements of the book. While the adolescent dialogue doesn't always ring true and the ending is a bit rushed, the confusion, self-doubt, and self-discovery that Phoebe experiences will be familiar to readers. The lesbian issue is unresolved and relatively low-key, allowing it to be as important or unimportant as readers make it. A shy, unpolished girl in the throes of growing up having something to offer to a fashion maven will be a welcome idea to the many girls for whom glamour and popularity seem as distant as the moon.-Faith Brautigam, Gail Borden Public Library, Elgin, IL Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

School Library Journal

A story with feminist and lesbian overtones follows 13-year-old Phoebe, raised on an isolated Maine farm, in her developing friendship with Melita, the 14-year-old daughter of an unstable actress from New York City. Phoebe has no real friends, so when Melita arrives for a visit, Phoebe is apprehensive. Soon, however, she becomes fascinated with Melita's sophistication. She begins to feel a strong attraction to Melita, especially after they practice kissing, and is devastated when she believes Melita rejects her as the two girls later spend time in New York. Jahn-Clough shows insight into Phoebe's developing personality, but other characters seem sketched in, changing their behavior to become instantly reasonable when they realize they've hurt Phoebe. Phoebe's lesbian feelings are not resolved by the end, leaving her simply as a growing girl with more confidence, better able to make friends and join the world. (Fiction. YA)

Kirkus Reviews