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Published on Sunday, Mar 02, 2008
When people give you A Little Friendly Advice, sometimes it's best not to take it. In this novel for teen readers by Siobhan Vivian, an Akron girl named Ruby should trust her own instincts, but instead relies on her friends, namely Beth, whom she's known since grade school. She also hangs out with boy-crazy Maria and unknown quantity Katherine, who's recently joined the group after her basketball teammates ignored her problems.
The story begins on Ruby's 16th birthday, as Ruby's posse shows up to take her out for a little underage drinking and hanging out at Akron Pinz, the bowling alley on Copley Road. But before they can leave, Ruby's dad shows up, uninvited. He'd walked out six years before, and Ruby's uncertain of how she feels about a reunion. Her friends encourage her to snub him, and one member of the group goes a little too far to prevent them from reconciling. Is she trying to spare Ruby's feelings, or acting in her own interest?
Ruby and her friends go to fictional Akron High, but they shop at bona-fide Square Records and Revival Resale. She meets a sympathetic boy who goes to exclusive Fisher Prep, home of the ''richy-rich rubber boys,'' sons of rubber executives.
Vivian's strength is in allowing Ruby to be a smart girl who nevertheless doesn't have all the answers, who wants to please her friends (who aren't mean girls, but they don't have the answers, either). A franchise on the order of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants might be in the offing.
A Little Friendly Advice (248 pages, hardcover) costs $16.99 from PUSH, a division of Scholastic. Siobhan Vivian lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.
Footnotes
• Hudson native Constance W. McGeorge will come home on Wednesday for a signing at the Learned Owl Book Shop, 204 N. Main St. Her children's books include a series about Boomer, a golden retriever, and the wonderful Chestnut, about a horse. On Saturday at 1 p.m., Jim Joyce will ride in to sign The Bicycle Book: Wit, Wisdom, & Wanderings. Joyce also is the editor of online magazine The Bicycle Exchange.
• Novelist Bob Adamov will speak at the Akron Home and Flower Show at 3:30 and 6:30 p.m. Friday, and 2:30 p.m. Saturday. He'll sign his Put-in-Bay-based mystery-adventure books. The show is at the John S. Knight Center, 77 E. Mill St.; adult admission is $7.
• Steve Kelleher will sign Ghosts of the Magic City from 1 to 3 p.m. Saturday at Snowball Books, 564 W. Tuscarawas Ave., Barberton.
• Ann Roher will visit the Blue Heron Bookstore, 1593 Main St., Peninsula, from 1 to 2:30 p.m. Saturday to sign Mr. Picky and Me: Lessons from a Master Chickadee.
• Bob Delaney will sign Covert: My Years Infiltrating the Mob at 2 p.m. Saturday at Joseph-Beth Booksellers at Legacy Village in Lyndhurst. Delaney, now an NBA referee, was a New Jersey State Trooper in the 1970s when he was asked to gather evidence to convict crime families.
— Barbara McIntyre
Special to the Beacon Journal
Send information about books of local interest to Lynne Sherwin, Features Department, Akron Beacon Journal, P.O. Box 640, Akron, OH 44309 or lsherwin@thebeaconjournal.com. Event notices should be sent at least two weeks in advance.
When people give you A Little Friendly Advice, sometimes it's best not to take it. In this novel for teen readers by Siobhan Vivian, an Akron girl named Ruby should trust her own instincts, but instead relies on her friends, namely Beth, whom she's known since grade school. She also hangs out with boy-crazy Maria and unknown quantity Katherine, who's recently joined the group after her basketball teammates ignored her problems.
Get the full article here.
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