Description: Betsy and Molly are best friends growing up in Charleston, Illinois in the 1940s, a time when everyone was caught up in the crisis, and excitement, of a country at war. Tall and awkward, fiercely intelligent yet painfully shy, Betsy loves her friend Molly with the devoted intensity particular to preteen girls. Beautiful and confident, pure at heart yet worldly beyond her years, Molly is a bright butterfly who captivates everyone she meets. But then Molly's father dies and her world is turned upside down. When Molly's newly widowed mother is involved in a scandal and the two are forced to leave Charleston, Betsy is utterly devastated. She moves on with her life but many years later, when she falls deathly ill, Betsy learns the horrible truth about Molly's fate and is finally able to understand fully all that Molly represented to her.

The second half of this remarkable novel is told mostly through Molly's voice and Betsy's interpretation of what happened to Molly. Dead in childbirth at the age of 17, Molly has willed all her diaries to her old friend Betsy. In these diaries is the story of how Holly and her mother moved to Ithaca, New York, where her mother took in a boarder, an older man named Richard Richard. But when Molly's mother dies in an accident, Richard Richard becomes Molly's guardian. From there the diaries reveal Molly's complicated existence at the hands of a stepfather who uses her horribly. But while Molly's life does not turn out as she would have liked, her good heart and her spirit live on to inspire Betsy, a moving, enduring testament to the power of friendship and love.

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