Pretend it's a coed school by giving girls their own toilet.   The only female companions to be found at St. Sebastian's: Tara Finke, ultra-feminist; Siobhan Sullivan, former "Slut of St. Stella's Academy"; and Justine Kalinsky, impossibly dorky accordian player.   Thomas Mackee: Specializes in musical burping. Probably dropped on his head a few times as a baby. Will Trombal: Perpetually frowning, smug moron with no personality. Now, if only Francesca could stop daydreaming about him...   The Queen of Limitation Placers - Francesca's vivacious mother. Thinks she knows what's best for Francesca and makes her attend the hateful all-boys school - until the day she is suddenly stricken with acute depression, leaving Francesca lost, alone, and without an inkling of who she really is.

MOST OF MY friends now go to Pius Senior College, but my mother wouldn’t allow it because she says the girls there leave with limited options and she didn’t bring me up to have limitations placed upon me. If you know my mother, you’ll sense there’s an irony there, based on the fact that she is the Queen of the Limitation Placers in my life. Francesca battles her mother, Mia, constantly over what’s best for her. All Francesca wants is her old friends and her old school, but instead Mia sends her to St. Sebastian’s, an all-boys’ school that has just opened its doors to girls. Now Francesca’s surrounded by hundreds of boys, with only a few other girls for company. All of them weirdos—or worse. Then one day, Mia is too depressed to get out of bed. One day turns into months, and as her family begins to fall apart, Francesca realizes that without her mother’s high spirits, she hardly knows who she is. But she doesn’t yet realize that she’s more like Mia than she thinks. With a little unlikely help from St. Sebastian’s, she just might be able to save her family, her friends, and—especially—herself. Hardcover | $15.95 Knopf Books for Young Readers ISBN: 978-0-375-82982-6 Also available in: Hardcover Library Binding | $17.99 Knopf Books for Young Readers ISBN: 978-0-375-92982-3 Also available in: Paperback | $8.95 Knopf Books for Young Readers ISBN: 978-0-375-82983-3   Other books by Melina Marchetta: Looking for Alibrandi For as long as Josephine Alibrandi can remember, it’s just been her, her mom, and her grandmother. Now it’s her final year at a wealthy Catholic high school. The nuns couldn’t be any stricter—but that doesn’t seem to stop all kinds of men from coming into her life. Caught between the old-world values of her Italian grandmother, the nononsense wisdom of her mom, and the boys who continue to mystify her, Josephine is on the ride of her life. This will be the year she falls in love, the year she discovers the secrets of her family’s past—and the year she sets herself free. Told with unmatched depth and humor, this novel—which swept the pool of Australian literary awards and became a major motion picture—is one to laugh through and cry with, to cherish and remember. Paperback | $8.95 Knopf Books for Young Readers ISBN: 978-0-375-83694-7 Also available in: Hardcover Library Binding | $17.99 Knopf Books for Young Readers ISBN: 978-0-375-93694-4

Home   |   About the Book   |   About the Author   |   Read an Excerpt

Copyright © 1995-2008 Random House, Inc. All rights reserved

Kids@Random | Teens@Random | Teachers@Random | Privacy Policy