MARINKA, KATINKA AND ME (SUSIE)

Susie has no friends at all until, on the first day of fourth grade, two new girls come to school (the coincidence in their names is never mentioned) and the three, just-like-that, become inseparable. All are relatively poor, all have lost their fathers (to death, divorce or prison), and they get on so well that Susie's feet seem to say happy happy happy as she jumps rope with the others. Then Marinka and Katinka fight and part, Susie finds herself first on one side and then on the other, and all three are miserable until Susie at last initiates a reconciliation. Madison never probes very deeply or deviates from the usual course of best friendships, but she does describe the trio's awkward, sad and contented moments with some feeling for fourth grade vibrations.