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Reviews (4)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 3-6-Co-authors Paula Danziger and Ann M. Martin read P.S. Longer Letter Later, their novel written entirely in letters (Scholastic, 1998). When Tara*Starr moves away from her best friend Elizabeth at the beginning of seventh grade, the girls and their families begin to change. In their correspondence they discuss a mix of serious family problems and the trivialities and fantasies of young teens. The girls share trials and personal growth, and reveal their personalities and friendship. Though total opposites, their friendship has flourished for years. With separation come the stresses of different personalities, family crisis, and changing life styles that may destroy their friendship. Elizabeth's family suffers financial and personal setbacks after her father loses his job. Responsible but flamboyant Tara*Starr finds her parents changing from "charents" to parents. Tape quality is excellent, as is the narration. These letters provide a unique method of storytelling and offer good lessons in coping with serious problems, character development, and school groups. Girls will enjoy reading this book, and teachers will find effective ways to use the tape for such reading skills as fluency and expression and for modeling writing skills and effective letters.-Ann Elders, Mark Twain Elementary School, Federal Way, WA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
If Danziger and Martin had been childhood pen pals, their correspondence might have read much like this strikingly insightful epistolary novel. Each known for a finely tuned ear to her audience, the venerable authors here do a splendid job of creating a story based on the letters exchanged between 12-year-old best friends, one of whom has just moved to another state. The authors' distinctive voices give the collaboration a rare spontaneity and realism. Impulsive, outgoing Tara*Starr streaks her hair purple, can't resist a pun, pens an irreverent column for her school paper and fancies creme-filled, frosted doughnuts with sprinkles. The whole-wheat variety is the doughnut of choice for quiet, thoughtful Elizabeth, who enjoys cross-stitching, launches a poetry journal at school and isn't quite ready to pierce her ears. Tara's life, which had been chaotic prior to her move, hits some unanticipated twists: her mother and fatherwho had Tara at 17begin acting like parents for the first time (taking steady jobs, setting rules around the house) and her mother becomes pregnant. Elizabeth, meanwhile, whose life was quite predictable and steady, faces cataclysmic change when her spendthrift father loses his job, struggles with alcohol and abandons his wife and daughters. Her crises spawn some moving passages, including her response to Tara's ironic complaints that her life is "a shambles" because snow postponed the school play; "It better turn around soon," writes Elizabeth, "Your life is the only good one I have." Readers will also readily identify with Tara's confessions of inadequacy about how to console Elizabeth (e.g., "Zounds! Zounds! Zounds!/ A million times Zounds!/ I don't know what to say. Your news is soooooooo awful!"). Even when the girls argue and the time between letters grows, readers can appreciate what goes into the erosion and rebuilding of friendship. Given Danziger's and Martin's penchant for continuing story lines, readers can only hope that this will be an ongoing correspondence. Ages 10-13. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
Letters between best friends Elizabeth and Tara-Starr document the changes in their lives and the tests their friendship undergoes after Tara-Starr moves away. Their animated correspondence also records a painful yet ultimately strengthening rite of passage for Elizabeth, whose family is forced to shed their upper-class exterior after her business-executive father is downsized. From HORN BOOK Fall 1998, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
Gr. 5^-7. Two popular authors tell a story together in the form of letters between 12-year-old best friends who miss each other terribly when one of them has to move away. Danziger writes in the voice of Tara*Starr: she has moved to a new town with her very young parents, who are just beginning to grow up; things are becoming right for her family at last, and she is happy in her new school. Martin writes in the voice of Elizabeth, who at first seems the stable one, but there are troubling secrets in her wealthy family. As the girls write to each other, sometimes daily, it slowly becomes clear that Elizabeth's dad is breaking down after losing his job and his lifestyle, and he finally leaves home. Even with two different authors, it's not always easy to tell the voices apart, especially at the beginning, when the sprawling chatter seems as if it could go anywhere. However, the immediacy of the letters format will draw kids in, especially as the tension mounts in Elizabeth's home and her friend replies with humor and heartfelt sympathy. --Hazel Rochman