When Stacy Friedman discovers her best friend, Lydia, kissing the crush of her life, Andy Goldfarb (the boy she dreams of kissing, or maybe marrying, at her Bat Mitzvah party), she does what any respecting seventh grader would do, she uninvites her to the party. For seventh grade is all about friendship. Luckily, for Rabbi Sherwin, the Bat Mitzvah is about more than that, and his advice to her to perform three good deeds before the ceremony actually works: Her mother is bouncing back from her father’s departure; her embarrassing younger brother loses weight; and she, herself, acquires a boyfriend. And yes, Lydia comes to her party. Rosenbloom’s seventh-grade girls are completely real: self-centered and peer-oriented, inextricably linked by cell phone and instant messaging and dying to be independent and grown up. They will be welcomed by readers at that same awkward stage. Light humor with a little lesson. (Fiction.10-14)
