Meeting Melanie

By Nancy Garden

A dangerous drama unfolds on a remote Maine island Almost-twelve-year-old Allie Ward's summer is not looking especially fun-filled. Seal Island, Maine, is a pretty isolated community, and the only other resident kids her age have suddenly decided they don't want to hang around girls anymore. More important, her lobsterman father has injured his back and isn't able to work his usual job. To compensate, Allie's mother and father are trying to set up a business selling pies. Allie doesn't mind helping her parents out, and she wouldn't want to leave the island for anything, but she longs for a friend. Enter Melanie Rochambeau. She and her family are summering on the island in an elegant home that they've just inherited. Allie and Melanie hit it off almost immediately, but their easy alliance is challenged by Melanie's mother, who turns up her nose at socializing with working-class people. And soon Allie finds herself embroiled in a Rochambeau family secret involving Melanie's older sister. The situation escalates into one that could potentially destroy a family, and even endanger two lives.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0374349436
• ISBN13: 9780374349431
• Release Date: September 2002
• Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.8" x 8.4"
• Age Range: 9 to 12 years
• Grade Range: Grades 4 to 7

Customer Reviews

Wonderful for tweens

A very good book for girls who are at that stage of starting to hear/notice the differences in (and hardships of) their peers in an emotional way. The eye-opening story is not fairy tale, but is not too harsh for this age group. Great for passing around from friend to friend. My daughter donated a copy to her 5th grade library!

A moving story of conflict and discovery

Allie isn't looking forward to her summer: her isolated Maine community offers few friends and her father has injured his back, so the family has to pitch in and start a new business to help out. When she meets a summer girl whose family is staying at an elegant home they inherited, she forms an uncertain friendship with a girl who has everything monetarily, but lacks family support. Their friendship will change both their worlds in this moving story of conflict and discovery.