Telegram - Of BSG, friendship bracelets ...

Of Beacon St. girls, friendship bracelets
Shirley Barnes
Jun 12, 2006

TEMPLETON -Summer reading adventures for a group of young girls received a jump start on a rainy Saturday afternoon at a local bakery.

Katie Blais, who works for the publishers of the Beacon Street Girls book series, read part of Book 5, "Promises, Promises," to a group of girls ages 9 through 13.

The girls swarmed around one of the coffee tables in The Kitchen Garden, on Baldwinville Road, to learn to make friendship bracelets like the ones Charlotte made for her friends in book 5. The girls learned how to let each bead stand for a special quality for that friend.

The idea for the series of books about five girls in the preteen age group originated with Addie Swartz, who saw a lack of positive role models and entertainment for girls that age.

She said she was convinced there was a need for more realistic and wholesome role models to counteract the influence of role models such as Britney Spears and other girls who grow up awfully fast. She said the books were a way to bridge the gap between Barbie and Britney.

The author, Annie Bryant, is actually a team of writers with three editors, according to Ms. Blais.

The book event was planned by Joyce Dossett, chief baker and owner of The Kitchen Garden, who read some of the books and liked them.

Mrs. Dossett ordered books to sell in the gift section of her bakery and decided to donate books 1 through 7 to her hometown library in Phillipston and to the Templeton Boynton Library. Book 8 just came out in May.

Hoping to introduce the books to local girls, Mrs. Dossett asked Ms. Blais to hold a reading and beading session at the Kitchen Garden. The rainy weather Saturday was perfect for listening to a book, making bracelets with friends - both new and old - and snacking on goodies.

The young girls delved into baskets of beads of all types and shades, ranging from glitzy to wooden in a variety of sizes. Not only did the girls seem to enjoy the afternoon, but mothers, grandmothers and aunts who brought the girls showed their own creativity and made bracelets for one another.

The books have been out for a few years.

Some of the girls compared how many they have read, and others were meeting the five middle school girls in the series, Maeve, Isabel, Katani, Charlotte and Avery, and their adventures for the first time.

Kimberly Cloutier, a former worker at the Kitchen Garden who now teaches in the Northboro school system, said a lot of her sixth grade pupils read the books when they have free time. She said it would be great to incorporate some of the books into the curriculum.

Mrs. Dossett said she and Katie Blais plan to hold another book event about the Beacon Street Girls.

"It was a lot of fun," she said. Copyright © 2006 Worcester Telegram & Gazette Corp.
series on a weekday in late July. In fact, Mrs. Dossett said, the event led her and some of the people working for her to think about other community events, such as pumpkin decorating, which could be held at the store.