Another one of those childhood books unearthed during a move. This is your basic elementary school friendship story where the girl loses her best friend (mainly because said best friend is really not a nice person), starts up a project wherein she hopes to regain her best friend but learns by the end what a friend, and being a friend, really means. It was also interesting to come at this as an adult. Jessica, the girl, not only must ferret out this whole thorny friendship issue, but she also has to come to terms with her rather smothering mother. This second theme probably went right over my head when I was a kid. Coming at it through the mother's eyes, well, there's a lesson there.