The Look of Love by Denise Cass Brookman (1960)

Candy was Kirk Stock's girl, and to be Kirk's girl was to be admired and respected--even envied.  For he was a letterman in football, president of the Senior Council, a good mixer, a good dancer and the most popular boy at Ryder High School.  Although they had similar tastes and backgrounds Candy found, oddly enough, that they had little to say to one another when they were alone.  All their friends shared the same comfortable standards and all of them conformed to the same safe, snug pattern that sometimes seemed to stifle Candy.

She had an indefinable yearning to find her own sense of values, and it was this quality that Joe Czierwotni recognized.  Joe's world was different.  Experience had made him realistic and truculent, but he was attracted to Candy even though common sense told him that he was remote from her life and therefore all wrong for her.  But the moment was right, and--feeling that she had everything, yet nothing--Candy was drawn to him regardless of her family's concern.

In this new junior novel about two people who are different--yet somehow the same--the author of The Tender Time introduces a sensitive, levelheaded young heroine who tries her own wings for the first time.  (from the inside flap)

Say Hello, Candy by Bianca Bradbury (1961)

Candy didn't start out by saying hello.  In fact, she felt she was saying goodby to everything; to the only home she'd ever know, to all her friends, and most of all, to Tom.

For Candy the world had stopped turning and the bottom had dropped out of life.  Here she was heading for Maine with Mom and Dad.

They had often spent summers in Maine, but this was for keeps.  Ever since Dad's accident, which confined him to a wheel chair, money had become a problem for the Andrews' family.  They were trying to solve the problem by moving to the house they owned in a small Maine town.

But loneliness can be deeply rooted in a teen-age girl, and Candy was not to be thawed by the friendliness and sympathy of a small town. She was there, all right, but she didn't have to like it!

Bianca Bradbury has written a deeply understanding story of loneliness, and a young girl's growing up.  Every reader will understand Candy's search, and will share her glow when "that certain boy" comes into her life.  (from the inside flap)

Christy by Carole Bolton (1960)

When the doorbell rang, Christy was wearing faded jeans and big fat curlers in her hair.  She was in absolutely no condition to meet her fate, but here he was, standing at her door.  Gideon Myles was a successful writer; he was dashing and glamorous--and he was almost as old as her father.  But he made her feel as though she had passed from one room to another, where a blue light was burning instead of the pink one she had left behind.

Christy soon became caught between her teen-age world and an impossible dream.  She found herself saying catty things about Julie, the thirty-year-old librarian who had always been dear to her--until Gideon's arrival.  She quarreled with Frank, a wonderfully solemn student of archaeology, whom she denounced as a callow youth.  And she learned, finally, that even when love goes away, its sad, sweet poignancy remains.

Christy's efforts to win Gideon are sometimes childish and absurd, sometimes agelessly feminine.  In this delightful book, which introduces a fresh new writing talent, Carole Bolton describes them with a keen awareness of the rue and humor and touching reality of love at sixteen.  (from the inside flap)

Meet Me in St. Louis by Sally Benson (1941)

"Meet me in St. Louis, Louis, meet me at the fair ..."

St. Louis--at the turn of the century, back in the age of innocence, when a date was called an engagement, a wolf was a lady-fusser, a long-distance phone call set the whole town talking, and the St. Louis World's Fair was the most glorious, exciting, glamorous thing that ever happened in the whole, wild world!

Here is the delightful, funny and wonderfully real story of the two pretty Smith girls, Rose and Esther, their beaux and romances, their troublesome small sisters, their young brother, Lon, a "Princeton man," and their nice parents, just as bewildered and bewildering as parents today. (from the back cover)

The Real Thing by Rosamond du Jardin (1956)

The summer after graduation from high school can be the shortest summer of a girl's life, especially when her favorite man is going to a different college.  Tobey Heydon found that September came too soon and that saying good-bye to Brose was much harder than she had expected.  Tobey and Brose had decided not to let their relationship stand in the way of new friendships at college, but their sensible decision didn't make the separation any easier.

College proved to be even more exciting than Tobey had foreseen.  Rush Week, classes and roommates kept her from thinking too much about Brose during the first hectic weeks.  The week ends were filled with sorority activities and dates with a variety of new and interesting college men.  But in spite of the fun of being a freshman, Tobey looked forward to vacations.

She missed her family--even her little sister Midge, who had stopped being a pest and started asking for Tobey's advice--and she missed Brose.  As the year went on, Tobey began to realize that the new friends and new experiences of her freshman year had not changed her mind about Brose or about their future. 

Readers of Practically Seventeen, Class Ring and Boy Trouble will welcome another story about Tobey, whose feelings and problems ring true to all girls.  (from the inside flap)

Double Wedding by Rosamond du Jardin (1959)

And in the Distance--Wedding Bells ...

Graduation seems terribly far away to Pam and Penny, as they start their second year of college, especially since they and their fiancés agree that graduation should come before marriage.

But college days are crowded days and many things happen to speed the waiting.  One of the most intriguing of them is Pam's growing friendship with lovely, unhappy Geneva Day, who had been so unfriendly during the twins' "showboat summer"!

Then sooner than Pam and Penny ever dreamed possible, it's commencement time--to be swiftly followed by rice and old shoes!  (from the back cover)

A Man for Marcy by Rosamond du Jardin (1954)

Trouble for the Senior Girls ...

Marcy Rhodes and some of her friends face the start of their senior year in high school with a sinking sensation.  Last year they had dated only senior boys, who are now off to college, and the girls find themselves high, dry, and desperate.

When a club called "The Widows" is organized, Marcy enthusiastically joins the "mourners," and by the time her erstwhile steady arrives home for Thanksgiving vacation, Marcy is wallowing in self-pity.  And her mood doesn't improve when she learns he has been dating at college!

Only the skillful intervention of Marcy's brother Ken averts disaster.  Thanks to him, and to Marcy's basic good sense, the balance of the year is gratifyingly different.  (from the back cover)