What Every Girl (Except Me) Knows

I’m assuming I’ll turn into a woman someday whether I know anything about being one or not. But being womanly is something you definitely have to learn. Girls probably don’t even know they’re learning it. But one thing for sure is that it has to come from a mother.

And a mother is one thing I don’t have.

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Description

Twelve-year-old Gabby feels that she needs a mother to help her grow into a woman, so when things between her father and his latest girlfriend do not work out, Gabby sets off for the last place she remembers seeing her own mother.

Unlike most kids faced with the prospect of having a stepmother, Gabby Weiss isn’t the slightest bit resistant to the idea. Gabby wishes her father would hurry up and marry someone who knows more about womanhood than she does, someone who understands her obsession with all that is happening (and, worse, not happening!) to her body. For a while, it seems as though her father’s girlfriend, Cleo, might soon be filling the role of mother, but when things fall apart, Gabby has to find her own solution. So she travels to the last place she remembers seeing her mother, searching for a memory. But what she finds is something even better.

 

 

• A Publishers Weekly Flying Start, 2001
• A Booklist Top Ten first Youth Novel
• Publishers Weekly Cuffie award “Most Promising New Author”
• 2003 Lone Star Reading List (Texas Library Association)
• Bank Street College of Education Best Children’s Books of the Year
• VOYA Top Shelf Fiction
• 76Booksense Choice for Children

Bittersweet, emotionally complex first novel. Baskin sensitively renders the tumultuous period between childhood and adolescence.

Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Candid, lively, and absorbing. a fine novel that offers a perceptive and positive look at dealing with loss.

Kirkus Reviews

Unusual, deeply felt…Baskin’s first person narrative is smoothly engaging overall, and the dialogue rings true.

School Library Journal

Perceptive and sympathetic. Gabby and Taylor’s friendship is absolutely authentic.

Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books (recommended)

A gripping coming-of-age story. The upbeat friendship story and the painful family mystery are a winning combination.

Booklist

Themes explored in this work include family relationships, friendship, and belonging. This title will be popular with fans of Judy Blume and Sharon Creech.

KLIATT