Because She's My Friend

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

When her older sister goes out of town for a summer job, 14-year-old Teresa D'Angelo begins volunteering at the hospital, where she meets Valerie Ross. Valerie has hair like Michelle Pfeiffer's and emerald green eyes, lots of money, a glamorous life--she's got everything, it seems, except the use of her leg. Shy, polite Teri envies Valerie's brashness, just as Valerie envies Teri's health and supportive family. Told in alternating first-person chapters, the novel chronicles the girls' brief, bittersweet friendship. Teri learns self-confidence from Valerie, while Teri rescues Valerie from depression. Sirof steers clear of the potential for melodrama by presenting her characters with candor, honestly assessing their jealousies and providing solid motivations for their actions. Teri's Catholic faith serves as a believable frame for her behavior; Valerie's psychological problems loom as large as her physical difficulties. These two quite different heroines do not remain intimates--a sober development that gives the stamp of authenticity to the nonetheless uplifting conclusion. Ages 10-14. (Sept.)

School Library Journal

Gr 5-9-There never were more unlikely friends than half-British, all upper-crust Valerie Ross and Teri D'Angelo, a shy kid from a lively blue-collar family. But the 15-year-old New Yorkers meet when Valerie is partially paralyzed in a freak accident and winds up in the hospital in which Teri volunteers. Bristling and remote, the patient accepts her fellow teen's unconditional friendship, and the results change both their lives. With Valerie's support, Teri confronts gender bias in school and challenges her family's traditional sexism. When Valerie's physical symptoms lead to an emotional breakdown, the friendship is tested. Through chapters that alternate between the girls' voices, the text is immediate and convincing. Many of the peripheral characters seen through their eyes are complex and interesting, especially the members of Teri's big, loving family. However, the more restrained and distant Ross family is less believable. Sirof explores the boundaries of friendship and the meaning of courage in a book that's hard to put down. Readers who enjoyed Cynthia Voigt's Izzy, Willy-Nilly (Atheneum, 1986) will find Because She's My Friend irresistible.-Carolyn Noah, Central Mass. Regional Library System, Worcester, MA

Hazel Rochman

Enemies can become the best of friends; the 15-year-old girls in this story meet in the intensity of a quarrel. Terri D'Angelo, from a blue-collar Italian American family, is a model of good behavior and respect for authority. Working as a hospital volunteer, she meets half-Jewish, half-British Valerie Ross, whose right leg has been paralyzed after an accident. The one thing Valerie doesn't want is pity from a "Mother-Teresa-be-kind-to-cripples" saint, and she says so in no uncertain terms. But the girls do get together, and in their alternating first-person narratives, we see how they make the world bigger for each other. Knowing Valerie helps Terri stand up for herself in her family and in her church school, where she overcomes sexism to start making a future for herself as an engineer. And knowing that Terri values her as a person, not just an object of pity, helps Valerie return to school and overcome her depression. There's a bit too much overt psychologizing at times, but kids will welcome the candor about mixed-up feelings. Quarrels make for great entertainment, and the snap of dialogue here is funny and wonderfully irreverent: Like Terri, we enjoy it when Valerie throws tantrums and challenges the rules. There's no sentimentality or glib solution. Sirof is honest about the limits of family ("you're not always close to people you love"), about the physical pain of illness and the engulfing depression, and about the way even a good friendship can end.