And there are a large number of continuing plot threads - just as in real life - from making the squad and buying the right prom dress, to getting a driver’s license and figuring out the dynamics of going parking after a date, to dealing with the crises in her friends’ own love lives - and also with sudden tragedy.

There’s a huge supporting cast, many of whom are developed in just as many dimensions as the four key characters. and then the whole course of the following two years becomes more serious, more trying, deeper, as the narrative matures along with the girls. With the help (mostly) of her two closest friends, Bev (the most beautiful girl in school) and Puddles (who’s afraid of nothing), Snowy catches her prize. And the best boy, the biggest catch, is Tom Forbes, star of woodshop, center on the varsity football team, and certified hunk. But as important as it is to her to make straight-A marks, and to be on all the committees, and become an officer of NHS, and to acquire all the other awards of teenage success, the biggest thing in her life, and in the lives of her friends - of every girl in the school, actually - is to be dating the “best” boy, to be wearing a letterman’s sweater and going steady. She’s smart and an excellent student and an over-achiever in all her endeavors, from girl scouts to the school newspaper, and especially with the varsity cheerleading squad, the activities of which provide one of the principal foci of the narrative. Almost everyone she knows is blue-collar, but she and a small number of her friends are determined to go to college. Very briefly, it’s 1955 and Henrietta Snow - known to everyone as “Snowy” - is fifteen and a sophomore at a small-town New Hampshire high school. There’s so much the author has to say that ought to be noted, and there’s so much I need to say about my reactions to it. It’s difficult to write a review of a book like this.

The cheerleader ruth doan macdougall