I loved your book and will be leaving for Dayton, Ohio, tomorrow for the 44th "Council Gathering." We are now five (our beloved Pat passed away several years ago)and continue to get together every year even though we are now in Texas, Tennessee, Indiana, and Dayton and Cincinnati, Ohio. We started working together in 1965 and started with a Christmas Progressive Dinner. After moves and grandchildren we decided that Christmas was no longer a good time to gather so we have changed from a one-night Progressive Dinner (that would start at about 5 p.m. one evening and end around noon the next day) to our annual Council Gathering that is now about four days long. We've shared joys and sorrows, have a Council cookbook, and have various parodies of songs that could make a Council songbook. Long ago we established ourselves as "The Council" and all have various "official" titles. Our Historian is the official keeper of our history, and we yearly grade ourselves on "The Voelpel Scale of Happiness." The Council husbands understand, and our children are official Councilettes who all have special engraved silver baby cups proclaiming them as such. Email and Skype enable us to keep in touch; and when we do gather, we pick up right where we left off. I am blessed to have these wonderful women in my life. With apologies to you, each of them will receive a gift of your book from me (renamed "The Girls from Cincy")that I hope they will enjoy reading as much as I did. Thank you for getting to the heart of such special bonds.

I picked up your book today while I was at Border's in Ames and was immediately engrossed. My family bought Marilyn's old house on Woodland Street in 1997! I lived there from the time I was in 5th grade until I was nineteen and I am told that the MacCormick's lived there til the mid to late 1960s. I have since graduated from ISU and moved to Des Moines to be a teacher, but was in town for Father's Day. I began talking with my parents about the house as I read the book. It sounds like Dr. MacCormick was as well-received in the Ames community as the book details. When my mom and dad bought the house many people told them stories about how the house used to belong to a very respected pediatrician. We were told that the MacCormick's moved up the street from us, but I am not sure if that is true. Another interesting fact: apparently my great aunt Lorainne made the MacCormick's curtains! It was so fun to read the book in my parent's house and think about the family who lived there before me. Thank you for that gift!

This book is a treasure. Will put it right next to my all time favorite Little Women.
Oprah should do this one. think of the topics!

Thanks so much. Am meeting with high school friends next week in Muscatine Iowa.
class of 1965. turn 62 next week.

I started and finished it while on a girls weekend with frineds from Iowa. We call ourselves the "Idiots Out Wandering Around" - thankfully one of us now lives in Princeton to help us navigate NYC! We bonded in Pella as "outsiders" and have remained loyal friends through moving, job changes, teenagers, and lots of chardonnay. 3 remain in Iowa to keep us grounded.

I couldn't put it down and am VERY glad Iowa is on my list of places I have lived, or I never would have found these awesome women.

We are a group of eight long-term friends who graduated from Raytown High School, Raytown, MO, in 1972. We were struck by the many similarities among our group to the Ames girls.

We refer to ourselves as the Raytown Porch Girls, as we have met annually for a weekend on the "porch" of one of our own. The friendships amongst the group have continued to evolve over time, some of us getting closer to friends we knew less well in our youth. Within this group, we are 15 years old again, and are loved and supported no matter what. We've been through boyfriends, husbands, infertility, divorces, cancer, loss of spouse, the angst of raising teenage children, and the joy of welcoming grandchildren. We can tell each other anything and often we do. Among our many actitivies during our girls' weekend, we have danced on the porch, we tell stories, drink wine, shopped at the local boutique or antiques stores, and catch up. It helps us to know that there are people who like us; love us; who don't know us as wives or mothers or co-workers--but just as the "girls" we once were and still are.

As we mailed around to each of the Porch Girls and read your book, much like a sisterhood of the traveling book, it was fun, but not surprising to us to read about the importance of friendships in women's lives through the ages.

So, Mr. Zaslow, we invite you to a porch weekend. You will find us witty, charming, intelligent, accomplished, attractive and, of course, humble. Email us to find out the date of our next Porch Girls weekend.

I grew up in Sioux City, IA. This book was selected for our book club where I work. Next week we will meet to discuss it and I can't wait as I believe all of the people in our group loved it as much as I did. I too shared very similar experiences growing up with my girlfriends in Sioux City, many of whom I keep in close contact with to this day. Thank you Ames girls for sharing your story and reminding us all of how important our girlfriends are in life. Also, to Kelly and Angela bless your hearts as my mom used to say. You can beat it and you will.

The book caught my eye because my parents both graduated from Ames HS in the 60s. I lived there until I was five and visited my grandparents in Ames during the summer through the 80s. I can't wait for my mom and my aunts to read the powerful story.

The book was full of wisdom and insight.

I appreciated the girls' perspective on important transitions as I'm turning forty this summer and our eldest child is entering high school.

I feel a renewed sense of the immportance of helping my nine year old daughter nurture meaningful friendships.

I'm more committed to caring for my own friendships and renewing connections with friends I've lost track of.

Thank you for sharing so openly. It was a blessing!

I purchased this book and will pass it along to daughters and their girlfrinds. I have a group of 5 friends from grade school and we get together a couple times a year for 60 years! We don't have sisters, thus old friends really matter. Judy

What a wonderful book.....I also am so blessed to have a group of girlfriends. I can not imagine my life without them. We have been there for each other through deaths, divorce and illness. I know for fact I would not of survived without my girls. I call them 'The Saving Graces '. We will age gracefully together and always, no matter what be there for each other.

** I highly recommend the book ' The Saving Graces by P.Gaffney- another excellent girlfriend book **

I just compeleted this book. My family and I spent 4 wonderful days relaxing at a cabin in the great north of Minnesota. My mother had seen some of "the girls" on the local news talking about an upcoming book signing. Since I am a Faribault High School gradute she recoginzed Kelly and thought it may be worth the read. She read it in a few short days and brought it on our mini vacation. I couldn't put it down. My four year old son and husband of 6 years got a little fusterated with the fact they had to repeat things a few times while I was so involved in my reading. My poor 5 week old' belly served as a holder while I perfected the task of nursing and reading at the same time. I laughed, cried and kept saying these women remind me of my group of highschool friends. About 12 of us continue to get together for a weekend at the cabin every summer. We stay up too late, eatand drink too much, talk and laugh to our stomachs hurt and come up with our own little FBB's. It has been 10 years since we graduted from high school, most of us are married have children and are consumed with our daily lives but one weekend a year we sit around a fire, talk about the past, present and future and thank God despite years and miles we still pick up where we left off.

I am in the midst of chronicling a 25 year sisterhood between eight of my sorority sisters (and our children) and have to admit, when I began reading The Girls from Ames, I thought someone (Jeffrey Zaslow) had beat me to it.

While their 40 years of friendship was a spectacular read, it justifies even further the power of my circle of friends and the legacy we are leaving for our children. I have renewed energy in going forward with my writing. Thanks to The Girls from Ames for sharing your story. Best to you all!

Well done, ladies. What a fantastic example you are to girls young and old. Thanks for letting us be voyeurs!

This book really resonated for me -- I am class of 1980. I didn't have close girlfriends in high school, instead I was friends with everyone in all the cliques, but had no close friends.
I really enjoyed seeing myself and my classmates in the girls. Growing up in a Seattle suburb, we didn't detassel corn, we picked berries, a torture all its own. And seeing the pictures of the girls "back then" was a kick -- I was laughing because I wore those shoes, I had that shirt, and of course, even thousands of miles away, we had The Big Back Pocket Comb.
Interestingly, I found the book at the same time I began using Facebook, and I've reconnected through the Web with people I haven't seen in 30+ years. It's neat. Thanks for writing the book, and thank the ladies for allowing themselves to be written about.

Just finished the book in a couple of days. So ironic how I am starting to reunite with a close friend from elementary school. We have never lived more than 20 miles apart but definately went in different directions. Now both of us have young children and so much enjoyed reminiscing about the past in arecent get together with our sisters. I hope to continue to reunite with them.

Many years ago my mother (who is not living) met 7 women as the registered for College at Indiana Normal College in Terre Haute, IN. That would have been in about 1931. They were the best of friends. It was during hard times in the US and the girls (as they called one another) didn't have the money or the inclination to join a sorority and so they bonded through the next 2 years. As the left school, they stayed intouch through a chain letter that exited for the next 65 years. It would sometimes get "stuck" at someones house for a few months but eventually the person would remove the last letter they had included in the packet, write a new letter and send the letter on. They scattered around the country but held reunions through those years each summer at someone's home. I have pictures of myself and my brother (as a baby) and I as a 4 year old (I am now 73yr) with members of this group and their children and spouses. I also have pictures of myself and the "girls" with their families with myself, my children and husband. As they grew older they continued to stay in touch until my mother died in 1998 at the age of 86 yr. I have not heard from any of the children for many years but reading your book as made we want to reach out to those other children of the "girls."
I hope I can find even one.
Thank you - I am passing this book on to my daughter to read - as she knew her grandmother's friends and now she is the age of the Ames Girls. What a gift you have given us all.

Carol Barclay