Books with title The Noonday Friends

A powerful, award-winning novel about friendship. Phyllisia Cathy—She is fourteen. Her problems seem overwhelming: New York, after life on her sunlit West Indies island, is cold, cruel and filthy. She is insulted daily and is beaten up by classmates. What Phyllisia needs, God not being interested, is a friend. Edith Jackson—She is fifteen. Her clothes are unpressed, her stockings bagging with big holes. Her knowledge of school is zero. She has no parents, she swears and she steals. But she is kind and offers her friendship and protection to Phyllisia. “And so begins the struggle that is the heart of this very important book: the fight to gain perception of one’s own real character; the grim struggle for self-knowledge.”—Alice Walker, The New York Times

"You never can do anything except on weekends," Simone complained. "How can people be friends only on weekends?" Stiffening, Franny said, "If you don't want to be friends, Simone, then all right." Threatened, as she so often was, with tears, Franny, as she usually did, fought them back. "See if I care," she said airily. Franny does care - a lot. But what can she do? Her mother works long hours at the laundromat, and her father can't seem to hold down a regular job. And who is going to clean the house and look after 4-year-old Marshall? It all falls on Franny's shoulders. But Franny will suffer any indignity - even her shabby clothes and not having enough lunch money - if her best friend Simone is on her side. But lately, Simone keeps taking about dopey rich Lila, and all the free time she has to play. How can Franny and Simone be friends if they never see each other?

Suddenly, Franny and Simone, her best friend, aren't speaking anymore and Franny can't even remember why they quarreled in the first place. This on top of so many other worries and disappointments. Franny's father can't hold a job, her mother is busy helping to support the family, and Marshall, her younger brother, is too young to understand why everybody is sad. She didn't mind taking care of him but Simone was right. How can two people really be friends when they can only see each other at lunchtime and occasionally on weekends?