Shelf Discovery
Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading
By Lizzie Skurnick
With Contributions By
Meg Cabot, Laura Lippman, Cecily von Ziegesar, Jennifer Weiner, Margo Rabb, Tayari Jones, and Anna Holmes
For my mother,
who told me I was a writer.
Contents
Foreword
You Are What You Read
By Laura Lippman
Introduction
Getting My Period
By Lizzie Skurnick
Chapter 1
Still Checked Out: YA Heroines We’ll Never Return
A Wrinkle in Time
The Great Brain
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
Artful Dodgers
Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself
Florida Orange Jews
Harriet the Spy
Diary Land
By Anna Holmes
Farmer Boy
Thrashing, Threshing, Whitewash, Blacking
Danny, the Champion of the World
Raisin D’etre
Ludell
The Peach State
The Great Brain
Brain Food
Chapter 2
She’s at That Age: Girls on the Verge
Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret
A Real Girl Loved by Real Girls Everywhere
By Meg Cabot
Sister of the Bride
Veiled Messages
Blubber
Ethnic Flensing
By Jennifer Weiner
The Cat Ate My Gymsuit
Teach for America
A Ring of Endless Light
Deep Thoughts
Tiger Eyes
Managed Care
The Long Secret
A Note on the Type
Then Again, Maybe I Won’t
Window Undressing
And You Give Me a Pain, Elaine
Sister Act
To Take a Dare
Homing Instinct
Caroline
Either/Ore
Chapter 3
Danger Girls: I Know What You Did Last Summer (Reading)
The Westing Game
Identity Theft
Daughters of Eve
Mad Libbers
The Grounding of Group 6
A Killer Course
Summer of Fear
Which Witch Is Which?
I Am the Cheese
Don’t Know Him from Adam
The Arm of the Starfish
On the Straight and Sparrow
Dragons in the Waters
Phair Game
Secret Lives
The Portrait of an Artist
Chapter 4
Read ’Em and Weep: Tearing Up the Pages
Jacob Have I Loved
Coastal Erosion
Summer of My German Soldier
Summer Camp
The Pigman
Senior Moments
Bridge to Terabithia
Crossing Over
Tell Me if the Lovers Are Losers
Blind Faith
A Day No Pigs Would Die
Trough Times
Beat the Turtle Drum
Horse Sense
The Gift of the Pirate Queen
Blood Kin
Chapter 5
You Heard It Here First: Very Afterschool Specials
Deenie
Brace Yourself
Don’t Hurt Laurie!
Hit and Miss
Are You in the House Alone?
Can You Hear Me Now?
Go Ask Alice
Smoke and Mirrors
It’s Not the End of the World
Splits and Starts
Chapter 6
Girls Gone Wild: Runaways, Left Behinds, and Ladies Living off the Fat of the Land
Island of the Blue Dolphins
Feather Wait
Little House on the Prairie
Fresh Kills
The Witch of Blackbird Pond
Stock Characters
Homecoming
Traveling in Steerage
The Endless Steppe: A Girl in Exile
Miss Steppes
Julie of the Wolves
Packed and Sealed
Understood Betsy
Town and Country
Chapter 7
She Comes by It Supernaturally: Girls Who Are Gifted and Talented
Ghosts I Have Been
Ferry Me Across the Water
A Gift of Magic
Options and Futures
The Girl with the Silver Eyes
Life on the Pharm
Stranger with My Face
Stop Projecting
Hangin’ Out with Cici
Time Outs
Jane-Emily
Global Terror
Down a Dark Hall
In-School Suspension
Chapter 8
Him She Loves: Romanced, Rejected, Affianced, Dejected
Forever
The Talk
By Tayari Jones
Happy Endings Are All Alike
The Price of Fault
Fifteen
Prelude to a Kiss
My Darling, My Hamburger
Double Whopper
In Summer Light
Non-Idiots in Love
By Margo Rabb
The Moon by Night
Hit the Road, Zach
To All My Fans, With Love, From Sylvie
Riding Sidesaddle
Chapter 9
Old-Fashioned Girls: They Wear Bonnets, Don’t They?
An Old-Fashioned Girl
Polly Want a Slacker?
The Wolves of Willoughby Chase
Life’s a Bitch…and So Is the Governess
By Laura Lippman
The Secret Garden
Shut-in and Dig
Cheaper by the Dozen & Belles on Their Toes
Mother Knows Best
By Laura Lippman
A Little Princess
What’s Mine Is Yours
All of a Kind Family
The L.E.S. Pinafore
Chapter 10
Panty Lines: I Can’t Believe They Let Us Read This
My Sweet Audrina
A Tale of Two Sisters
The Clan of the Cave Bear
Ayla Kicks Ass
By Cecily von Zeigesar
Wifey
Rejecting the Norm
The Clan of the Cave Bear
Do the Wild Thing
Flowers in the Attic
He Ain’t Sexy, He’s My Brother
Domestic Arrangements
Girls on Film
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Other Books by Lizzie Skurnick
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
Foreword
You Are What You Read
By Laura Lippman
A few weeks ago, I found myself playing with the idea that someone had grown thin from carrying a grudge. It was clearly a literary allusion—my mind is an ill-organized attic of such stray and fragmented lines—but I wanted to pin down the source before I, well, stole it. The phrase sounded Shakespearean to my ears; perhaps it was part of Cassius’s lean and hungry look? Yet a quick Google search on “grudge” “thin” and, belated inspiration, “stoop-shouldered,” yielded nothing. Still I knew someone else had said this first. Thin…grudge…stoop-shouldered. Thin…grudge…stoop-shouldered. I finally conjured an image of a young redheaded man, bent over an experiment in a high school chem lab, and then I had it: My bard was no less than Lenora Mattingly Weber, the author of
a young adult series that followed Catherine Cecilia “Beany” Malone of Denver from junior high to the early years of her marriage. The grudge-holder with poor posture was Norbett Rhodes, her first real boyfriend. Aficionados of young adult fiction will not be surprised to learn that Beany’s devotion helped to straighten Norbett up and out.
And I was ashamed. Not that I confused Weber with Shakespeare, but that I had to grope for the source. I know Weber’s work so well that I used to play Beany trivia with my sister, another fan of the series. Between us, we own all of Weber’s books and I re-read them regularly. I also re-read Maud Hart Lovelace, Edward Eager, Noel Streatfeild, Beverly Cleary, Betty MacDonald, Anne Emery, Sally Benson—you get the picture. By day, I pretend to seriousness, reading contemporary novels and classics. But at night, mind soft and eyes bleary, I am likely to crawl into bed with a beloved book from my youth, something I know almost by heart. The familiar words soothe and relax far better than any over-the-counter sleep aid.
Some people are baffled by rereading in general, the rereading of children’s books in particular. What’s the point? Why waste time revisiting the books of childhood when there’s so much else to read? With these essays, Lizzie Skurnick has answered those questions far more eloquently than I ever could. It’s as if a kindly psychiatrist suddenly appeared with a sheaf of missing brain scans. Do you giggle when someone tells you to “sit here for the present”? You are channeling Ramona Quimby, who turned those simple words into a daunting challenge. Does the mere mention of a mink-trimmed coat make you secretly swoon, even though you are rabidly anti-fur? You have “A Little Princess” complex. Do you long to cover your enemies with leeches? You’re having a “Little House” flashback.
Lizzie first started writing these pieces as a regular feature, Fine Lines, for Jezebel.com. In a world measured by page views and comments, Fine Lines was an instant success when it debuted in November 2007. It turned out that the world was teeming with women like me, who had been shaped by the reading lists of their youths. And Lizzie—a poet/critic/journalist who once toiled in the Sweet Valley High sweatshop and wrote Alias novelizations—was the perfect guide. (In interest of full disclosure, she also is a dear friend.) Funny, smart, and skeptical, she didn’t limit herself to the Newbery-ordained, librarian-blessed works, although there are plenty of those to be found here. No, Lizzie understands that, say, The Grounding of Group 6, Flowers in the Attic, and Summer of Fear affected us as profoundly as Little Women. We just needed someone else to say it first.
Don’t be fooled, however, by the breezy, comic tone and liberal use of CAPITALS. This is serious stuff, difficult to execute. I know, because I substituted for Lizzie twice, and was surprised by the challenges of the form. (I also was taken aback by the vehemence of adult women who do NOT want to rethink their allegiance to certain childhood classics, and please do not trouble them with anything as picayune as facts, thank you very much.) Demon rereader that I was, I learned from Lizzie not to use beloved texts merely as soothing soporifics, but to root around in them for—sorry, it must be said—subtext. Thus retrained, I found even more to love in writers ranging from Beverly Cleary to Sandra Scoppetone. I also have found a few lacking, even a little dangerous in their agendas, although the sins of YA writers are easily eclipsed by the misogynist worlds of Mario Puzo, Harold Robbins, and even Jacqueline Susann. Which, alas, I also read when very young, but at least had the good sense not to reread. Except for Susann.
Mary Gordon, in her seminal essay on American literature, “Good Boys and Dead Girls,” likened certain novelists to untrustworthy tour guides. They might show us great things of beauty, she wrote, but they also might insist that a fetid swamp is a dazzling waterfall. Even our best writers—William Faulkner, Theodore Dreiser—had their lapses, especially in passages about women. Gordon concluded that we can’t change the writers, only ourselves. We must stand firm in the face of their lies and decide if some are worth our loyalty at all. In our voyages back to literary landscapes we loved, Lizzie provides a vital reality check. She will not only tell you that the emperor is wearing no clothes, but might note that he needs a discreet wax job as well.
By the time we realize the profound influences of our youthful reading lists, it’s too late to undo them. Yes, if I knew then what I know now, I would have read more seriously and critically during those crucial years that my brain was a big, porous sponge. But I didn’t and my hunch is that you, dear reader, didn’t either. So stretch out on Dr. Lizzie’s couch and find out why you think it would be kind of cozy to be locked up in an attic with your brother. Or learn to dissect the subtle class consciousness of Judy Blume’s New Jersey. Ponder the way that Lois Duncan’s characters come into unexpected powers, natural and supernatural alike, as they enter adolescence. Contemplate the fact that Ramona Quimby may be a fictional creation on a par with Emma Bovary. We should not be ashamed of rereading our favorite books, only of rereading them thoughtlessly.
Laura Lippman
Baltimore, MD
November 2008
Introduction
Getting My Period
By Lizzie Skurnick
I can’t remember the book that made me into a reader. (God, how much better would this story be if I could!) All I remember is that first I wasn’t a reader, and then, suddenly, I was. (A Taste of Blackberries? The Witch of Blackbird Pond? The novelization of The Karate Kid?) I had been a fretful classroom reciter, following along in a desultory manner while my mother read my brother and me Lad: A Dog and The Hobbit at bedtime. Now, suddenly, I was the kind of girl who felt true physical pain when asked to put down a book at the dinner table, who asked friends over and ignored them to finish Island of the Blue Dolphins for the fifth time. (This created a complex tangle of outrage: my parents wanted me to pay attention to my friends; my friends wanted their parents to stop asking them why they didn’t read as much as I did.) But I felt ravenous toward each book, like a vampire desperate to clamp my fangs into the foreign body until it was drained in its entirety, slumping lifeless to the floor. (A Gift of Magic! Sport? Superfudge???) I understood we were eating dinner. But after all, did dinner—and the rest of the people sitting around at the table—really require my undivided attention to be eaten? Eating could happen anytime. This book (Beat the Turtle Drum? Iggie’s House? On the Banks of Plum Creek?) was happening now.
Luckily for my parents, who had tucked away half of their books in my room for storage, I was also, in my tastes, completely indiscriminate. No leather-bound, $100 sets of classics for young readers necessary—if it was my brother’s Tales of the Deep, completely with a many-armed “kraken” on the cover; if it was my mother’s old copy of The Fixer; if it was my grandmother’s Nicholas and Alexandra; it didn’t matter. It was on the shelf and I could follow at least 35% of the action? I gave a try. By the age of 10, I had developed a taste for Erma Bombeck, William Least Heat Moon, The Monkey Wrench Gang, and Sonia Levitan. I had read Lore Segal’s Her First American, and understood it, a little—ditto The Assistant. I was very fond of Terms of Endearment and read it dozens of times. (I still think it’s underappreciated.) There was a Richard Bach stage—I’m not ashamed, although, if you must know, Jonathan Livingston Seagull is his weakest work—and, pressed by my mother, a dalliance with Tess of the D’Urbervilles, which I’m also not ashamed to say, eluded me completely, especially after I’d seen Nastasia Kinski in the movie.
The conventional wisdom is that a precocious reader is a child in possession of a preternatural grasp of both the facts and features of the adult world. This may well be true of some, but it was not true of me. My reading list didn’t grant me access to the particulars of adult life, but to its moody interstices, the dark web of complex feeling that apparently suffused life after grade school. Like a child reciting nursery rhymes, I was consumed with the music of the words, not the circumstances surrounding Little Miss Muffet and her actual tuffet. (Well, can you, even now, confidently define “tuffet”?) Let’s take The Good Earth. (The Good Ear
th???) I knew nothing about rice farming, mistresses, dynasties, or opium—I couldn’t have pointed out China on a map—but still, I understood Wang Lung in all his lust, kindness, weakness, and rage, and O-Lan in her sorrow and strength. The former slave who, freed, keeps two pearls hanging between her breasts! Which her husband takes from her, for his mistress! Which he thinks of still, miserably, after her death! Gah—who cared where exactly China was!
One would also think such precocity would make one’s school reading a snap, but in fact, I took a dim view of all of our reading assignments. After all, after a character like Terms of Endearment’s Emma, who soaks triumphantly in the tub after she goads her husband into punching her to exorcise her guilt for having an affair, how worked up was I supposed to get about Curley’s wife in Of Mice and Men? (Anyone who wanted to read seriously scary Steinbeck, I knew, should try that rape scene in The Wayward Bus.) All those animals…The Red Pony, The Old Man and the Sea, Of Mice and Men, Watership Down—was this English class, or 4-H? I still credit those teachers for my categorical refusal to read Animal Farm. Books for middle-graders, young adults, and teens, apparently, were moral stories painted in broad strokes, slim texts in large fonts, small plots with big ideas with some furry friends thrown in to keep it bedtime-ready. The pigs are how power corrupts, the fish is God, the pony is innocence, or death, or something. Forget about seducing a realtor in an empty house while your wussy husband toils away on his thesis, then making sure you get socked in the jaw so you don’t feel too bad about it.
Still—had I only had my parents’ leftovers and my teachers’ assignments to go on, I’m sure I would have survived just fine on a diet of The Counterlife, occasionally cut with The Catcher in the Rye, getting my girl-growth vitamins from works like Little Women. (The discerning reader would definitely throw some Trixie Belden in there for seasoning, too.) But, as most of the bookworms born about a hundred years too late for An Old-Fashioned Girl and a few decades, give or take, too early for Gossip Girl know, there was another option.
The early 60s to the late 80s was a funny time in YA literature. Before, books for young girls were just that—a marvelous work like The Secret Garden, say—or simply wholesome and entertaining works centering around a spunky female character, like Nancy Drew, whose mysteries didn’t deal with adolescence for girls so much as star a young adolescent girl. (In this vein, I seem to have some memory of a work called Candy Striper, one of a workplace-based series—Ski Instructor?—which had a lot of tightly pulled bed corners, water pitchers, and stiff starched caps.) In short—we were in the story, but you’d be hard-pressed to say it was our story, any more than Love Boat was a moving depiction of life at sea.
Shelf Discovery Page 1