Books with author Doris Buchanan Smith

What do you do withoutyour best friend?Jamie isn't afraid of anything. Always ready to get into trouble, then right back out of it, he's a fun and exasperating best friend.But when something terrible happens to Jamie, his best friend has to face the tragedy alone. Without Jamie, there are so many impossible questions to answer -- how can your best friend be gone forever? How can some things, like playing games in the sun or the taste of the blackberries that Jamie loved, go on without him?

There was a plague of Georges in Jonathon's yard, seven of them, ranging from an unsteady toddle to Snaders, already a sixth-grade troublemaker. They even climbed the tree that had been a special place for Jonathon and his friends ever since he could remember, swinging on the rope and filling the air with their noise. It seemed that Sanders cropped up whereever Jonathon went, watching him play football with his friends, waiting outside the music store when Jonathon's parents took him to get his longed-for flute, and even hanging around when he practiced the piano. Jonathon resented the invasion. He didn't want Sanders in his life, making him question the importance of things he had previosly taken for granted, like music and books, loving parents and old friendships. What did Sanders really want from him? By the time Jonathon had learned the answer to that question, it was almost to late.