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Learn moreFriendship isn't always easy.
Natalie is different from the other kids in Dreenie's fifth-grade class. She comes to school in a wheelchair. She always wears a knitted hat. And she's allowed to bring her puppy to class. The kids in the class call Natalie "Bluish" because her skin is tinted blue from chemotherapy.
Dreenie is fascinated by Bluish and a little scared of her, too. She watches Bluish and writes about her in her journal. Slowly, the two girls become good friends. But Dreenie still struggles with Bluish's illness. Bluish is weak and frail, but she also wants to be independent. How do you act around a girl like that?
Virginia Hamiltonย (1936โ2002) grew up in rural Ohio among an extended family and generations of storytellers. Her grandfather, Levi Perry, was brought by his mother from Virginia slavery to Ohio via the Underground Railroad. She received nearly every award in the field of childrenโs literature, including the Hans Christian Andersen Medal, the Newbery Medal, the Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal, and the Coretta Scott King Award.
Lisa Renee Pitts is an award-winning actress in theater, television, and film, as well as an accomplished audiobook narrator. She has been seen Off-Broadway, in Europe, and in regional theaters across the United States, performing leading roles in such prominent plays as A Raisin in the Sun, Doubt, Waiting for Lefty, Valley Song, and Our Town. Her television appearances include The Shield and Law and Order, and she played the recurring role of Allison Sawyer on the hit family drama Lincoln Heights for the ABC Family Channel. Lisa's audiobook titles include biographies, fiction, nonfiction and children's novels, including Pushkin and the Queen of Spades by Alice Randall, for which she won an AudioFile Earphones Award for excellence in narration. Other notable titles are Left to Tell by Immaculee Ilibagiza, Better Than I Know Myself by Virginia DeBerry and Donna Grant, and My Name Is Not Angelica by Scott O'Dell. Lisa is a graduate of Rutgers University, where she received her B.F.A. in Theater Arts. She lives in Burbank, California.
Reviews
“Readers will come to cherish Dreenie’s openheartedness, just as Dreenie comes to cherish her newfound friend.”
“Lisa Renee Pitts’s fully voiced narration is well paced and generally successful at indicating the various ethnicities of the class.”
“Hamilton gets the way kids talk…she makes us ‘stop and look.’ Many readers will be caught by the jumpy, edgy story of sorrow and hope, of kids trying to be friends.”
“The handling of Bluish’s illness and her classmates’ concern is genuine and unsentimental, and the friends’ patience with and unity against that illness is simply but effectively depicted…This novel transcends genre labels with its honest and masterful depiction of the rewards and difficulties of friendship.”
“The complexities of friendship among three fifth-grade girls are eloquently explored in this short, accessible novel…Hamilton is right on target with her depiction of the speech and mannerisms of fifth graders.”
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