The Stainless Steel Rule [Library Binding]

Jean Ferris (Author)

Book Description

Age Level: 11 and up

Kitty and Fran fear that they are losing their best friend Mary when she develops a dangerous infatuation for a domineering, manipulative boy.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Kitty, Fran and Mary are the closest of friends, and they feel that nothingnot even boyscan drive them apart. Then handsome and athletic Nick Arlington comes to their high school. When he shows an attraction to Mary, Kitty is awed. But as the year progresses, Kitty begins to see a dark side to Nick; he can be violent and crueland Mary is growing away from her friends. Nick attains a hold over his girlfriend powerful enough to convince careful Mary, a diabetic, that she no longer needs her insulin. Not unil after she lapses into a diabetic coma does she see what Kitty and Fran have already recognized. Ferris has constructed a taut, compelling novel, with moments of high humor and characters that will challenge readers as well as appeal to them.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

Grade 6 Up High-school junior Kitty's mother left just after Kitty was born; her father is still living the life he lived in the Haight-Ashbury '60s, smoking dope, doing a menial job and painting. Because of all this, Kitty has come to depend upon her two best friends. Fran is smart and opinionated but secretly insecure; Mary, although also smart, beautiful and decent, is a diabetic who was given to loving foster parents at age nine by her natural parents. When Mary begins dating Nick, the school's handsome water-polo star, she begins to drift away from her two friends, and they begin to worry about Mary's increasingly slavish devotion to Nick. The girls become terrified when Nick convinces Mary that she can control her diabetes by using biofeedback techniques instead of taking insulin. Breaking her promise to keep it secret, Kitty tells Mary's mother, but it's too late; Mary lapses into a deep diabetic coma and nearly dies. Even worse, she resents Fran's and Kitty's interference. The novel has a slow beginning, but once it gets rolling the plot is strong, the characters well portrayed and the denouement is completely believable. This is a good story, marked by fine writing, and it is several cuts above Ferris' earlier Amen, Moses Gardenia (Farrar, 1983). Audrey B. Eaglen, Cuyahoga County Pub . Lib . , Cleveland
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 11 and up
  
• Library Binding: 170 pages
• Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux (J); 1st edition (March 1, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374372128
• ISBN-13: 978-0374372125
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.8 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,791,722 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.