How do you finally break free from a fair-weather bud who flees the scene as soon as a new guy comes around? How do you know which friends make it into your framily? With tips for making and breaking, maintaining and sustaining your friendships, plus stories from real women, Friend or Frenemy? explores how great friends get us through hard times and dishes out advice about dumping the users, losers, and abusers. In this era of instant communication, relationships are not necessarily easier. Friend or Frenemy? also looks at how texting, MySpacing, and other modes of instant communication are oh-so-convenient but sometimes make it harder to make meaningful connections. With tons of wit and loads of charm, Lavinthal and Rozler are sure to get you thinking about friendship as if for the first time—reminding us why our BFFs are often the most important people in our lives.

Friends and enemies--sometimes it's hard to tell the two apart. Especially when some people seem to be both. In her bestselling book Mean Girls, Hayley DiMarco counseled teens about how to handle mean girls at school or church who were making their lives miserable. But what's a girl to do when her own friends are the ones doing those mean and hurtful things--being her BFF one day but betraying her the next? Frenemies helps girls figure it out. In this new book from big-sister mentor Hayley DiMarco, teens will learn why friends act the way they do and how they should react when the mean people in their lives are the people they love and trust the most.

Ida May finally fits in at school after becoming best friends with Stacey Merriweather, who is universally liked by their classmates. But then Ida?s frenemy, bossy Jenna Drews, brings in a game of truth or dare, and all the girls are suddenly daring one another to misbehave. When Ida finds herself in the principal?s office, she?s scared into ratting out her friends and gets freezed out of the group. The only way she can fix things is to take a triple-dog dare: letting one of the girls pierce her ears. Will her BFF come to her rescue, or is this the perfect job for a frenemy? Packed with fourth-grade jealousies, problems, misbehavior, and consequences, this third book about Ida May stands on its own.

Men, jobs, children, personal crises, irreconcilable social gaps—these are just a few of the strange and confusing reasons which may cause a female friendship to end. No matter the cause, the breakup of a female friendship leaves a woman devastated and asking herself difficult questions. Was someone to blame? Is the friendship worth fighting for? How can I prevent this from ever happening again? Even more upsetting is that women suffering from broken friendships often have no one to confide in; while the loss of a romantic partner garners sympathy among peers, discussing the loss of a platonic friend is often impossible without making other friends jealous or uncomfortable. Written by journalist and psychologist Irene Levine, Ph.D., Best Friends Forever is an uplifting and heroically honest book for abandoned friends seeking solace. Dr. Levine draws from the personal testimonials of thousands of women to provide anecdotes and groundbreaking solutions to these complicated situations. Offering tools for personal assessment, case stories, and actionable advice for saving, ending, or re-evaluating a relationship, Levine shows that breakups are sometimes inevitable. Although the dissolution of female friendships can be difficult, Best Friends Forever teaches women to stop blaming themselves and probing the wounds, and that the sad experience of a broken friendship can make them stronger people, and more able to handle their relationships with wisdom.

Twelve-year-old Flor faces a bittersweet summer with a pageant, a frenemy, and a hive full of honey in this “sweet and satisfying read about friendship, sisterhood, and change” (Kirkus Reviews). It’s the summer before eighth grade and Flor is stuck at home and working at her family’s mattress store, while her best friend goes off to band camp (probably to make new friends). It becomes even worse when she’s asked to compete in the local honey pageant. This means Flor has to spend the summer practicing her talent (recorder) and volunteering (helping a recluse bee-keeper) with Candice, her former friend who’s still bitter about losing the pageant crown to Flor when they were in second grade. And she can’t say no. Then there’s the possibility that Flor and her family are leaving to move in with her mom’s family in New Jersey. And with how much her mom and dad have been fighting lately, is it possible that her dad may not join them? Flor can’t let that happen. She has a lot of work to do.

Middle school friendships can be a source of great joy one day, then pain and anxiety the next. Friends and Frenemies examines the complexities of friendship and helps young readers to start building communication tools that will last a lifetime. Loaded with quizzes, polls, activities, and advice from real kids, Friends and Frenemies is the tween guide to middle school friendships. No one wants to be trapped in toxic friendships, learn how to keep relationships healthy early in life!

New York Times bestselling author and host of the podcast Nurture vs Nurture Dr. Wendy Mogel shows parents how to navigate the challenging teenage years. When a child becomes a teenager, her sense of entitlement and independence grows, the pressure to compete skyrockets, and communication becomes fraught with obstacles. Dr. Wendy Mogel emphasizes empathy, and offers guidance over micromanaging teens’ lives and overreacting to missteps. She reveals that emotional outbursts, rudeness, rule-breaking, staying up late, and other worrisome teen behaviors are in fact normal and necessary steps in psychological growth and character development. With her signature wit and warmth, Mogel gives parents the tools to meet these behaviors with thoughtful care, offering reassuring advice on: · why influence is more effective than control · teenage narcissism · living graciously with rudeness · the surprising value of ordinary work · why risk is essential preparation for the post–high school years · when to step in and when to step back The Blessing of a B Minus is an important and inspiring book that fortifies parents through the teenage years.