Holly's First Love

Beverly Lewis launched her writing career with this series, and even at the start she had a clear gift for writing the social world of pre-teen girls without condescension or content that parents need to worry about. Holly and Andie's rivalry over the same boy resolves in a satisfying lesson about loyalty, and the parallel subplot about Holly's absent father returning after four years handles a genuinely hard topic with sensitivity. Faith is woven into the narrative naturally — church, prayer, ordinary Christian life — rather than inserted as a lesson. The story is slight by design; this is wholesome series fiction for ten-to-fourteen-year-old girls, not ambitious literary fiction. If you are looking for depth, look elsewhere. If you are looking for a safe, warm series starter for a young reader, this delivers exactly that.