Goodbye Stranger

Goodbye Stranger
by Rebecca Stead
Wendy Lamb Books, 2015. Fiction 289 p.

Bridge, Em and Tab have been best friends for as long as they can remember, but when they hit 7th grade, their friendship is challenged. Em gets a boyfriend and Tab discovers social activism. Bridge makes a new friend in Sherm, but doesn't quite know if their friendship is more than that. Everything blows up when Em feels pressure to text a risky picture of herself to her new older boyfriend. Does friendship mean doing what your friend wants you to, even if you know it is a bad idea? Each character faces challenges that threaten to overwhelm him/her, but the friends learn that if they support and help each other they can make it through. With amazing insight into modern early teen culture, Stead creates sympathetic characters caught up in the first whirlwind of adolescence. Stead won the Newbery with When You Meet Me and may well do it again with this one. This book is available in print, audio CD, ebook and e-audio formats.

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