The Cheerleader

The Cheerleader is a 1973 coming of age novel by Ruth Doan MacDougall.

Described on the author's website as "searchingly honest, achingly real, [recalling] all the joy, excitement, and pain of crossing the bridge from childhood to young womanhood in the Fabulous Fifties, when sex was still a mystery and goals were clearly defined--perhaps for the last time," it was first published in 1973 by Putnam and re-released in its 4th printing in 1998 by Frigate Books.

This is the first of five books in the "Snowy Series" ("Snowy: a sequel to The Cheerleader," "Henrietta Snow," "The Husband Bench, or Bev's Book," and "A Born Maniac, or Puddles Progress") following Snowy and "The Gang" as they continue through life.