The Friends

Guy, Rosa. The Friends. Bantam Dell Publishing Group, Inc. 1996. 185p.

The Friends is about a fourteen year old girl who has recently moved to New York from the West Indies islands. Phyllisia Cathy is casted as an outsider by the majority of her classmates, who make fun of her and even physically attack her.  There is one girl in Phyllisia’s class who seeks to be her friend and sticks up for her and protects her from the other students.  While Edith Jackson is the only one trying to befriend Phyllisia, she is the last person Phyllisia wants to be friends with; this is mostly because she looks down on her because of her poor appearance and lack of manners.  Phyllisia also has to deal with her brash father’s strict orders, her mother being very ill, and having to live in the shadow of her older, prettier, more popular sister, Ruby.  Edith also has a hard family life; her mother died several years ago, so she takes care of her four younger sisters after school while her father works at night to support the family.

While not all students will be able to relate to every issue in the novel, students will be able to find examples in the book that can be connected to their own experiences, however I do think it would be more relatable for girls, overall, because the main characters are young girls.   This book deals with issues of race, bullying, and identity.   There is swearing and some use of racial name-calling in the novel which may need to be addressed in a sensitive manner while reading this with middle-school students.   The reading level of this book is very simple, and none of the themes are too intense, so you would be able to read this with a lower middle school class, but with the characters being in eighth grade it could be read in that age level as well.