Secret Friends

By Elizabeth Laird

Book Overview

Although the other girls at middle school make fun of Rafaella and she avoids her when they are around, Lucy gradually gets to know her and her foreign family and is devastated when she learns the result of all the teasing Rafaella has endured.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0399233342
• ISBN13: 9780399233340
• Release Date: February 1999
• Publisher: Putnam Publishing Group
• Length: 71 Pages
• Weight: 0.56 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.8" x 8.6"
• Age Range: 10 to 14 years
• Grade Range: Grades 5 to 9

Customer Reviews

Real tear-jerker!

One book that I will never forget is Secret Friends by Elizabeth Laird. I read this when I was about 7 and I bawled my eyes out. I cried so much I couldn't keep reading, even if I had wanted to, I just couldn't see. I passed it on to my Mum's friend, Wendy, (because she caught me crying one night and asked why) and she admitts that she cried too. It's not very long, but it's a beautiful touching story.

Excellent choice for second language learners!!

I strongely recommend this book to second language learners who are tired of silly "detective" story. This story captured both your attention and your emotion. It tells the friendship between Lucy, a local girl and Rafaella, a foreign one. Since the story is told from Lucy's point of view, her struggle to overcome the racial barrier and peer pressure is portraited vividly. Readers just couldn't help forgetting Lucy when we undergo the same pains as she goes through.