Awww, this sounds perfect! The earnest research reminds me of Lois Lenski, who actually lived, enthnographer style, in some of the special-flavor American communities she wrote about. ... I'm not actually a fan of many of those books; I didn't really like very many of the stories the local color was wrapped around, but as an adult, I really appreciate the effort she made. And *some* of them I did like (Strawberry Girll and Shoo-fly Girl, though don't ask me now any details about either of them). And one of them, that was set in a bayou (Bayou Suzette), I read while writing Pen Pal out of curiosity and research interest. That one was illumating for showing how what it means to be progressive in dealing with the Other reeeeally changes over time. (Just now I checked LL's Wikipedia page, and look what a hot young thing she was!)
ETA--back to Best Friends at School: I'm also charmed by all the details of a friendship-and-boarding-school story as enumerated by you (who would know!), especially the running-away-and-near-fatal-illness and the engagement.
And YES, librarians are the best friends in the world ^_^
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2022-02-14 09:34 pm (UTC)ETA--back to Best Friends at School: I'm also charmed by all the details of a friendship-and-boarding-school story as enumerated by you (who would know!), especially the running-away-and-near-fatal-illness and the engagement.
And YES, librarians are the best friends in the world ^_^