Girl Detective

occult /oc·cult/ (ŏ-kult´) obscure or hidden from view.

-Oxford English Dictionary

In Chapter 7 of Shelf Discovery: The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading, Lizzie Skurnick explores why girls in the 70’s and 80’s were drawn to supernatural stories, like almost all of Lois Duncan’s works that haunted library shelves. She gives numerous good reasons for this, among them that it’s fun to imagine being able to read minds, commune with animals and terrorize bullies with just a narrowing of the eyes. But I’d like to expand on Skurnick’s view that the general upheaval, changes, and development of puberty are why girls flocked to these books, and why there were so many supernatural books for them to flock to. I contend that books about girls entering puberty and acquiring supernatural powers are written, and voraciously read, because they are actually mythological. Whether they do it overtly or not (e.g., Stephen King’s Carrie), these books point to the blood of menstruation and its power.

The connection between menstruation and childbearing adds its quota of supernatural dread….

-M. Esther Harding, “Woman’s Mysteries: Ancient & Modern.”

In The Moon & The Virgin. psychologist and poet Nor Hall expounds on the connection between the moon, women’s intuitive function (the receptive, feeling, creative side or anima, found in both genders), and menses at length Throughout many cultures, the moon was seen as the ruler of women, its phases mimicking or controlling women’s menstruation cycles. It was also seen as the giver and controller of Earth’s fertility. In many early societies, and perhaps some modern ones, the moon’s connection to women and Earth imbued menstruating women with troublesome, or even supernatural powers. To regulate this power, menstruating women were regulated to huts and not allowed to cook, step over children or crops, or perform other tasks lest their menstrual blood interfere with or taint things.

People with runny noses do not hide their tissues from colleagues and family members. They do not die of embarrassment when they sneeze in public. Young girls do not cringe if a boy spies them buying a box of Kleenex. Caught without a hanky on a cold day, people sometimes use their sleeves; they are sheepish, but not humiliated. They do not blush or stammer or hide the evidence. No one celebrates congestion…those who suffer publicly–ah choo!–are casually blessed. It is, in essence, no big deal.
The same is not true of periods.

-Karen Houppert, “The Curse: Confronting the Last Unmentionable Taboo: Menstruation.”

The books from this chapter:

Ghosts I Have Been by Richard Peck
A Gift of Magic by Lois Duncan
The Girl with the Silver Eyes by Willo Davis Roberts
Stranger with My Face by Lois Duncan
Hangin’ Out with Cici by Francine Pascal
Jane-Emily by Patricia Clapp
Down a Dark Hall by Lois Duncan

speak to us of a deep, ancestral part of us that believes menstrual blood, the language of the moon, and the cycles of life are potentially terrifying, and as such, necessarily occult–a hidden knowledge given only to the initiated. In these books, supernatural powers such as ESP and telekinesis are, like menstruation, both a curse and a blessing.

In the mundane world, our rational mind tells us that the biological machinations behind menstruation are as straightforward as the ones behind a sneeze. They’re not connected supernaturally to the moon like werewolves, witches and vampires. But dreamworld messages from ancestors say something quite different. These messages, however oblique, have been and continue to be disseminated through the fictions written down by our modern authors.

copyright Sarah Caflisch, 2012. All rights reserved.

My summer read-along is the Summer of Shelf Discovery, where we’re reading a chapter of Lizzie Skurnick’s book memoir, Shelf Discovery: The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading and some of the book selections she discusses in that chapter. This is week 7 (we’re more than two/thirds through!), and chapter 7 is “She Comes by It Supernaturally: Girls Who Are Gifted and Talented.”

The books Skurnick writes about in chapter 7 are:

Ghosts I Have Been by Richard Peck. (my review here)
A Gift of Magic by Lois Duncan
The Girl with the Silver Eyes by Willo Davis Roberts
Stranger with My Face by Lois Duncan
Hangin’ Out with Cici by Francine Pascal
Jane-Emily by Patricia Clapp
Down a Dark Hall by Lois Duncan

This type of book–girl approaches puberty and comes into “powers” of some sort–was huge with me as a girl. Some memories:

Ghosts I Have Been: sparked obsession with Titanic sinking, which I followed with Peck’s Amanda/Miranda.
A Gift of Magic: the book I flagrantly ripped off in one of my first attempts, ca. 4th grade, to write a novel
The Girl with Silver Eyes: asking my 7th grade science teacher, grumpy Mr. D, about this when we were learning about genetics. He was not amused.
Down a Dark Hall: entered a library picture contest and had it posted on the side of the kids card catalog. (My friend Karen won for her entry on Farmer Boy. She was and is a talented artist.)
Obsessions with Supergirl, Wonder Woman, Isis, Jean Grey/Phoenix, Bionic Woman, even Electra Woman and Dyna Girl.

Without knowing the mythologic implications of a girl coming into powers that frighten men when she hits adolescence, I devoured these books and books like them: And This is Laura, The Girl with Something Extra, Carrie, and the fantasy vein of them–the Anne McCaffrey Pern books. Long before the Spice Girls made it a buzz word, I think these books spoke to me of a Girl Power that I longed for.

What did you read this week, and what did it bring back for you?

Previous Posts on the read along:

Chapter 6 “Girls Gone Wild: Runaways, Left Behinds and Ladies Living off the Fat of the Land”
Chapter 5 You Heard It Here First: Very Afterschool Specials.”
Chapter 4 “Read ‘Em and Weep: Tearing up the Pages”
Chapter 3 Danger Girls: I Know What You Did Last Summer (Reading)”
Chapter 2 “She’s at That Age: Girls on the Verge”
Chapter 1 “Still Checked Out: YA Heroines We’ll Never Return”
How To Read Along

Cover of The Ghost Belonged to Me that I remember reading. (Good)

Modern cover of The Ghost Belonged to Me (Hate it)

This is the cover I wish I’d had:

This summer many of you and I are re-reading books of my youth from the list in Lizzie Skurnick’s reading memoir Shelf Discovery: The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading. Chapter 7 is “She Comes by It Supernaturally: Girls Who Are Gifted and Talented.” Skurnick includes Richard Peck’s Ghosts I Have Been, narrated by Blossom Culp, but I wanted to read the first book in the Blossom Culp group too, The Ghost Belonged to Me, which is narrated by Alexander Armsworth.

Starting in about 3rd grade, I remember becoming obsessed with ghosts and the supernatural, and began to devour books and television shows (In Search of!) about them. They scared me, but I loved them anyway. These two books were part of the canon for me back then, and a good beginning to my supernatural kick as opposed to some of the utter dreck that came later, e.g., The Amityville Horror.

Long before Peck won the Newbery Award for his children’s book A Year Down Yonder (which is very good), he was a prolific writer of teen fiction. Looking back, I think Peck, along with Lois Duncan, may have been the author whose books I read the most. Certainly the ghost stories of both these books were some of my favorites. In The Ghost Belonged to Me, Alexander has to contend with a ghost on his property.

It all happened when I was no longer a child nor yet old enough to be anything else. I was getting long in the leg but was still short on experience. This is always a difficult age to sort out or live through. All I know for sure is that ever after the ghost, I was changed somewhat and possibly wiser.

In Ghosts I Have Been, Blossom comes into her second sight when she hits puberty, and her adventures take her a very long way.

There are girls in this town who pass their time up on their porches doing fancywork on embroidery hoops. You can also see them going about in surreys or on the back seats of autos with their mothers, paying calls in white gloves. They’re all as alike as gingerbread figures in skirts. i was never one of them. My name is Blossom Culp, and I’ve always lived by my wits.

There’s good stuff in both these about poverty and social class. Blossom is a smart, wryly funny narrator, though one who lets her little sorrows show through the chinks in her armor every so often.

Some covers. The current one (meh)

The one I read as a girl from the library and which depicts Blossom as she’s described in the book:

Now I am not vain when it comes to looks. If I was, a trip to the mirror oulc cure me. My eyes are very nearly black, particularly if I am roused to anger or action. My hair needs more attention than I have time to give it. And my legs, being thin, do not show to good advantage, as being fourteen, I am still in short skirts.

And the one I owned, which, while attractive, shows a far-too-pretty Blossom and is by Rowena, who did a bunch of Anne McCaffrey covers, which were also supernatural books I loved as a girl:

Blossom’s story is largely about a ghost who drowned when the Titanic sank. Peck went on to write another story about Titanic passengers, this one a romance purportedly for adults, (there’s a recent re-issue for the anniversary of the Titanic!) though I know I read it at a tender age, even with this tawdry cover:

I read this book so many times the embarrassing cover fell off, at which point I threw it away. I wish I still had it. The guy on the cover, who is NOT in fact the main love interest in the book, has a similar back of the head to my husband.

An offshoot miniseries of Bill Willingam’s Fables comic-book series, Cinderella: From Fabletown with Love written by Chris Roberson (iZombie) and illustrated by Shawn McManus (Sandman: A Game of You) focuses on one of Fabletown’s favorite heroines.

Cindy, as she’s called by her friends, is an undercover spy enlisted by the sheriff of Fabletown to find out who’s been selling magical artifacts in the real (”mundy”) world. In her travels, she hooks up (in more ways than one) with Ala Al Din, “perhaps better known as Aladdin.” Or Lamp Boy, as Cindy calls him. The subplot, in which a shoe clerk in Cinderella’s shoe store messes up, isn’t funny, but the main story buzzes right along with laughs and a surprise villain at the end. A fun fast read for fans of the Fables series.

Just kidding. My mantra for this readalong is, if it’s fun and easy, read along, or comment. If it’s not, don’t.

Anyhoo, we’ll be discussing Chapter 7 this coming Monday 7/23/12, “She Comes by It Supernaturally: Girls Who Are Gifted and Talented”

This was one of a few chapters (along with chapter 5 and 10) that I’d read all the books in. I was a big Lois Duncan and Richard Peck fan. Next week we’ll be discussing these books. I’d love it if you read one and come to participate in our online discussion!

Jane-Emily by Clapp, Patricia
A Gift of Magic by Duncan, Lois
Stranger with my Face by Duncan, Lois
Down a Dark Hall by Duncan, Lois
Hangin’ Out with Cici by Pascal, Francine
Ghosts I Have Been by Peck, Richard
Girl with the Silver Eyes by Roberts, Willo Davis

This summer, I’m re-reading books of my girlhood, guided by the reading list in Lizzie Skurnick’s Shelf Discovery: The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading. Revisiting some of these as an adult is great fun, but also fascinating to see what I notice now and didn’t notice as a girl.

Chapter 6 of Shelf Discovery is “Girls Gone Wild: Runaways, Left Behinds, and Ladies Living off the Fat of the Land.” In one of the books from this chapter, Elizabeth George Speare’s The Witch of Blackbird Pond, teen girl Kit Tyler sails from Bermuda, where her grandfather and guardian just died. Unannounced, she arrives in Puritan New England, where her only other relatives are immediately embarrassed and inconvenienced by the impulsive and less-than-empathetic Kit, who has come to stay.

The contrast between Kit’s indulged childhood and the Puritan way of life is stark, but as an adult, I can see how both sides are more nuanced than I probably perceived when I was younger. Also, Kit is a selfish, spoiled, immature girl. I’m sure I related to her as a girl, but now can see her through the eyes of her Aunt Rachel. What’s enjoyable about this book is that Kit changes and grows, though doesn’t completely submit to the Puritan way of life.

Overall, I found this an immensely satisfying read with some pretty traditional romance novel tropes and a very traditional court scene. Kit meets the sailor Nat, but they quarrel. Then she meets a Puritan who courts her. He’s rich, and while she doesn’t love him, she likes the idea of what his money can get her, i.e. out of hard work and into pretty dresses. In the meantime she meets odd Hannah Tupper, the titular character and the one I think of every time I hear the Pearl Jam song “Crazy Mary.” Kit also befriends an abused girl, Prudence. In the end, everything, and I do mean pretty much everything, comes out right. Happy endings for all!

I will grudgingly admit that there might be some cliches in this book, but I still enjoyed seeing Kit’s (and a few other characters, too) uppance come, plus learning about Puritan New England.

My summer read-along is the Summer of Shelf Discovery, where we’re reading a chapter of Lizzie Skurnick’s book memoir, Shelf Discovery: The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading and some of the book selections she discusses in that chapter. This is week 6 (we’re more than halfway through!), and chapter 6 is “Girls Gone Wild: Runaways, Left Behinds, and Ladies Living off the Fat of the Land.”

The books she writes about are:

Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell
Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder
The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare
Homecoming by Cynthia Voigt
The Endless Steppe: A Girl in Exile by Esther Hautzig
Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield Fisher

As in the other chapters of Skurnick’s book, she asks what the draw is to this subset of children’s/young adult books:

From whence comes our obsession with churning, straining, boring, sewing, scraping, stirring, carding, pulling, picking, boiling and scrubbing? (219)

I think the answer is similar to that from chapter 5, which was Very Special Topics. I wanted to know what it would be like to live off the land, to be in that situation in the book. Without, you know, actually having to live by myself on an island for 18 years, work really hard, be exiled to Siberia, etc.

For this chapter, I read Island of the Blue Dolphins, and The Witch of Blackbird Pond. Two very different books but both about girls who are abandoned and have to learn to cope, though Kit gets a lot more help than Karana did.

Two of the books from this chapter were particular favorites of mine when I was young: Witch of Blackbird Pond and Understood Betsy. Both were about girls who were transplanted, and I suspect my oft-moving young self related to this.

For modern equivalents, I remember the female half of Cold Mountain was like this, how the Penelope character had to learn to survive on her own.

Which of these books did you read/have you read? What are some modern-day equivalents of the fish-out-of-water story?

Previous Posts on the read along:

Chapter 5

Chapter 4
Chapter 3
Chapter 2
Chapter 1
How To Read Along

Remember: post comments and links if you wrote about these books on your site. At the end of the summer, I’ll do a drawing, and Skurnick is donating a prize pack of some sort.

As I’m revisiting the books of my childhood reading along with the selections of Shelf Discovery, I’ve noticed many instances where I remember a few random details and forget many more.

As I was re-reading Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. This little sentence gave me pause:

My mother and father didn’t plan for me to be an only child, but that’s the way it worked out.

I’m sure I skipped right over when I read it as a girl. Now though, having known so many friends who have gone through the blood, sweat, and tears of infertility, it had an entirely different resonance. Judy Blume was known for her empathy to children, but this sentence hinted to me at her empathy for parents, too.

This summer, I decided to revisit the books of my youth, guided by the selections in Lizzie Skurnick’s Shelf Discovery: The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading. (Currently only $6 at Amazon!)

For Chapter 6, “Girls Gone Wild: Runaways, Left Behinds, and Ladies Living off the Fat of the Land,” which we’ll discuss here on Monday July 16, I read Scott O’Dell’s Newbery Award-winning Island of the Blue Dolphins.

Here’s what I remembered going in, besides “girl left behind” trope: a highly polished necklace with painstakingly drilled holes for stringing. Again and again on this re-reading odyssey, I’ve been surprised by what I remembered and just how much I’d forgotten. Why the necklace, and not the skirt made of cormorant feathers, or the taming of animals?

This is a spare narrative, and the main character, whose “secret” name is Karana, is not overtly romanticized or idealized. Instead, she overcomes difficulty and sorrow in practical ways, by working hard. Any of the many things she describes in the book–gathering abalone, making weapons, storing food for winter–would have most of us modern folks on our asses from the physical work within days, if not hours. And what must have been the monotony! I can only imagine the reaction of my children, who complain of boredom so much this summer that I’ve made it a word for the swear jar.

And yet, this glimpse into the past and a different life is exactly what makes the book so involving. I certainly had a starry moment or two of imagining living off the land, having an island to myself, though the thought of an island without books fills me with horror. But the work? The loneliness! The costs to Karana’s existence are presented matter-of-factly. There are interesting sub-themes about caring for animals, vegetarianism, and ecology. Ultimately, though, Karana’s ending and the reader’s ending of putting down the book bring are similar–they bring more relief than not in the return to other people and the comforts of civilization.

Can we just leave aside the argument about whether it’s too soon for a reboot? The reboot is here, so let’s discuss it.

The superhero action story, about Spider Man up against The Lizard is adequate, though the final sequence and fight scene are ridiculously similar to that from the Edward Norton Hulk.

Speaking of, I’m officially done with the trope of Daddy’s Little Girl in love with the anti-hero. “No, Daddy, no! Don’t hurt him!” Enough, already, Betty in Hulk, Lois in Superman, and Gwen in Spider Man.

BUT, the characterizations in this are terrific. Martin Sheen as Uncle Ben is great, but Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield are terrific as their respective characters. And together? Together, those two science geeks have chemistry enough to light up a lab. Hoo–ee, those two are both adorable and sexy.

Linda Holmes did a great breakdown at NPR’s Monkey See of Geek (Garfield’s Spidey) vs. Nerd (Tobey Maguire’s, see also Christopher Reeve’s Clark Kent, et al.)

So while the action in this one is OK, everything else, the backstory, the characters interacting, the acting–was tremendous, I thought. And the Stan Lee cameo was especially good this time.

One question: they cast the immensely like-able Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy. Unless there are major revisions in comic book storylines, which do of course happen, I foresee howls of outrage down the line of this reboot.

My friend Amy at New Century Reading is part of a readalong for the upcoming Michael Chabon book, Telegraph Alley. The guy at Micawber’s kindly gave me an advance copy a few weeks ago, so I figured I’d throw my hat in the ring.

Well, after 60+ pages, I’m taking it out.

The writing feels overwrought, and the cast of characters unrealistically hyper-entwined. I love most of Chabon’s work, but not this. Sample sentence that burped me out of the story:

From the lowest limb of a Meyer lemon, a wind chime searched without urgency for a melody to play.

I understand that Chabon is trying to make the prose blues-y and such, but I’d rather return to Toni Morrison’s Jazz. This feels like Chabon is embodying his own character Moby–a trying-too-hard white guy.

Also, from the inside description:

a NorCal Middlemarch

Really? Really?!

Sir, I’ve read Middlemarch. And Telegraph Avenue is no Middlemarch.

So many books. So little time. I’m on, on, on to the next one. (That’s Foo Fighters.)

I foolishly bought and re-read the supposedly true diary of a teen drug addict, Go Ask Alice, as part of the Summer of Shelf Discovery reading project. Here’s a representative sample, so you don’t have to read it, too. You’re welcome.

9/16 Yesterday I remember thinking I was the happiest person in the whole earth, in the whole galaxy, in all of God’s creation….Now it’s all smashed down upon my head and I wish I could just melt into the blaaa-ness of the universe and cease to exist

7/10 [after being dosed with LSD] It was fun! It was ecstatic! It was glorious! But I don’t think I’ll ever try it again

8/13 It’s all I can do to keep from crying

8/26 What a wonderful, beautiful, happy day!

9/7 Last night was the bitter end

9/27 Last night…I smoked pot and it was even greater than I expected!

10/18 I can’t believe I’ve sold to eleven and twelve year olds and even nine and ten year olds. What a disgrace I am to myself and my family and to everybody

11/23 one of the men passed me a joint and…I wanted to be ripped, smached, torn up as I had never wnated anything before. This was the scene, these were the swingers and I wanted to be part of it!

12/3 Last night was the worst night of my shitty, rotten, stinky, dreary fucked-up life

[lather, rinse repeat for the next 150ish pages]

Epilogue: The subject of this book died three weeks after her decision not to keep another diary.

My friend Amy at New Century Reading has nicely eviscerated this book, since she read it too for the Summer of Shelf Discovery reading bender. I can’t BELIEVE we were gullible enough to believe it was a true story, which it’s not. Wikipedia entry, Snopes.

A few notes:

1. Notice the word “subject” rather than “author” in the epilogue. Oops, slipped up there, diary fakers.

2. “I’ve been the digger here, but now when I face a girl it’s like facing a boy…Then I get sick and I just wanat anybody and I should be out doing my digging.” “Digging” was a movement in Haight-Ashbury, where she never went, and it was giving away stuff for free. Here it sounds like prostitution or scavenging.

3. The Alice of the title refers to the woman on drugs in the Jefferson Airplane song, as well as a girl the “narrator” meetings in the novel. It’s theorized that the author is “Carla” as from p. 113: ”

Big Ass makes me do it before he gives me the load….Little Jacon is yelling, “Mama, Daddy can’t come now. He’s humping Carla.”

I can’t believe I believed this (and Jay’s Journal, and Diary of Kristiane H, etc.) and I can’t believe I was gullible enough to read it again. JUST SAY NO! (to reading this book).

You remember Deenie, right? The Judy Blume book the pretty girl who has scoliosis and has to get a brace? If you were a girl in the 60s/70s/80s (and if any of you were earlier or later than that, chime in) then you probably do. But do you remember this:

As soon as I got into bed I started touching myself. I have this special place and when I rub it I get a very nice feeling. I don’t know what it’s called or if anyone else has it but when I have trouble falling asleep, touching my special place helps a lot. (55)

I sure as heck didn’t. Maybe I didn’t get it and just didn’t notice when I was young, I thought. But later in the book, when Deenie frets about the scoliosis, she says:

I touched my special place practically every night. It was the only way I could fall asleep, and besides, it felt good. (82)

Re-reading this, I was amazed that I didn’t remember this part of the novel at all. Why hadn’t my friends and I been as OMG! over this as we had over Margaret and her friends bust-increasing exercises in Are You There God It’s Me, Margaret? or the guy’s erections in Then Again Maybe I Won’t?

Maybe it was just these two short passages, I thought, and I’d been oblivious. Yet it immediately becomes overt in the book. When her gym class is asked to submit anonymous questions as part of a monthly discussion, Deenie writes:

Do normal people touch their bodies before they go to sleep and it is all right to do that? (82)

Deenie’s gym teacher Mrs. Rappaport, the same one who identified her spine issue, asks them if they’ve heard otherwise. Several girls say yes. She asks if they know what it’s called, then they name it together: masturbation. She then assures them:

“Nobody ever went crazy from masturbating, but a lot of people make themselves sick from worrying about it.” (84)

This scene takes up a full three pages in my edition. It’s straightforward, not in coded language that I might have skated over if I didn’t get it.

The last mention is toward the end of the book:

Usually I take showers and get in and out as soon as possible. But the hot water was very relaxing and soon I began to enjoy it. I reached down and touched my special place with the washcloth. I rubbed and rubbed until I got that good feeling. (132)

I find it interesting how Blume chose to name the act but not the “special place” or the “good feeling.” She took care to name and break down the term “adolescent idiopathic scoliosis.” And I find it really interesting how many details I recalled about the book, like Deenie being named after Natalie Wood’s character from Splendor in the Grass, and cutting off her hair, but didn’t remember a significant sub-theme of the novel, especially one I think would have kids tearing the book out of one another’s hands to find out more.

I read Deenie for my summer reading bender, where I’m choosing titles out of the chapters of Lizzie Skurnick’s reading memoir, Shelf Discovery: The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading. (WHICH YOU SHOULD GO BUY NOW NOW NOW BECAUSE IT’S ONLY $6 AT AMAZON!) It’s one of the titles in Chapter 5, “You Heard It Here First: Very Afterschool Specials.” Perhaps the Problem in the novel, scoliosis, was so front and center that it eroded the female masturbation from memory.

I remember checking out Don’t Hurt Laurie! by Willo Davis Roberts from the Worthington, Ohio library, probably soon after it came out. It was probably recommended to me by a librarian in a similar scenario to the one narrator Laurie describes in the book, minus the child abuse in my case:

“My goodness, what happened to you?”

Laurie swallowed. She wondered what the lady would say if she replied, “My mother hit me with a butcher knife.” But of course she didn’t say anything like that. She knew it would only make things worse.

“I cut my hand and had to have stitches in it,” she said.

“My, that’s too bad.” The woman took Laurie’s card and began to check out the books. “We’ve got a new book here you might like. It’s about a little girl whose parents are being divorced. The girls your age say it’s very good. Would you like to take it?”

“No, thank you,” Laurie said politely, averting her eyes from the cover. “I have all I can read in two weeks, I think.”

That wasn’t true at all. She could read twice as many books as she was taking out, without half trying. But she didn’t like books aboutkids and their problems with div orcing parents or alcoholic fathers or extreme poverty or troubles, troubles, troubles. She had enough problems of her own, and she didn’t want to think about anyone else’s, even in a pretend world where you knew everything was goign to turn out all right in the end.

What she liked were fun books, where it was not only all right at the end, but all the way through the book. (p. 7-8)

Reading this book at 44 rather than at 9 years old makes a big difference. I still was horrified at the brutality of Laurie’s mother. But I also cringed at the overly determined story, e.g., Laurie wishes her mother would die, then she gets hit by a car though doesn’t die.

I read this as part of my summer reading bender, Summer of Shelf Discovery. Lizzie Skurnick, in Chapter 5: “You Heard It Here First: Very Afterschool Specials,” writes about the pull of these Problem-with-a-capital-P novels:

It is part of the perverse logic of childhood that, as far as the fictional world goes, the greater the horror of the story, the greater the greedy reading glee…it goes without saying that a story that can tell us an entirely new horrible things we’ve never heard has unparalleled possibilities for enjoyment. (193)

What does it say that in 2012 books about child abuse, as well as after-school specials, very special episodes of television shows, and Lifetime movies, has become something of a cliche? That’s potentially a benefit. No one now would be unaware or ignore the symptoms Laurie experiences. Skurnick reminds us, too, that

in its day, both the revelations of the problem at all–to say nothing of its features–were largely unknown by the public, including young readers. (205)

Nonetheless, this book seems more a relic from a time capsule than something that continues to resonate, especially in its willingness to empathize with the mother:

“Her own mother mistreated her very badly, Laurie, and somehow that’s why she’s the way she is. She told the doctor some really terrible things that happened to her as a child…maybe when she gets that all out of her system, she won’t have to hurt you anymore.” (163)

Yes, children today still suffer at the hands of authority figures. And yet, this book seemed more like a careful description of what kids, teachers and health workers should notice, rather than a story of a complex character. It was more about the Problem than about Laurie.

For the summer, I’m reading along with the books Lizzie Skurnick wrote about in her reading memoir, Shelf Discovery. Chapter 5 is a small group of books that each had a PROBLEM: Deenie (scoliosis); Don’t Hurt Laurie! (child abuse); Are You in the House Alone? (acquaintance rape); Go Ask Alice (drugs); and It’s Not the End of the World (divorce). Though dated now, many of these were surprising at the time, and a title list could go on longer: there was the anorexia one, the satan-worshipping one, the mental illness one with the turtle on the cover, and even The Wave, which actually got made into an after-school special. Skurnick thinks their appeal was simple:

to imagine one’s own capacity to respond to the same situation, given the shot.

I liked revisiting these books well enough, but didn’t love any of them this time around, though I don’t remember loving them then, either, just devouring them, and any I could get my hands on. Prostitution? Runaways? Heroin addiction? While I didn’t love the books, I must have loved the vicarious thrill of reading about all these things.

I wanted to re-read Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak, one of my favorite young-adult books of recent years, and one that would fit nicely as a modern counterpart in this chapter. Alas, Don’t Hurt Laurie!, Deenie, and Go Ask Alice (alas, indeed) were what I had time to read, and the reviews are coming.

What book(s) did you read this week? What was your draw to these PROBLEM novels then, and is there any draw still, now? (more links to come).

Previous weeks:

Chapter 5

Chapter 4

Chapter 3

Chapter 2

Chapter 1

Remember: keep up the comments! Lizzie Skurnick has promised a signed copy of her book to one of you reading along (random drawing at end) with possible other goodies!

Another entry in my summer reading bender, Summer of Shelf Discovery.

Chapter 4 of Lizzie Skurnick’s reading memoir, Shelf Discovery, is “Read ‘Em and Weep” about books we read as kids that made us cry. Katherine Paterson’s Jacob Have I Loved was my first choice, and her Bridge to Terabithia was my second.

What I was surprised to find on this re-reading: IT’S NOT BEES! (”You never can tell about bees,” said Winnie the Pooh.) I’d thought the reason for the Tragedy in this book was bees. Nope. That’s A Taste of Blackberries, and the movie My Girl. No, the child death happens for another reason entirely. I paused in my reading of the book where the accident is announced. I thought this might have been like cutting off a sneeze, so I wouldn’t cry. Nope. As with Jacob Have I Loved, it was a slow accumulation of sadnesses at the end that had me leaking tears for many pages.

I skipped back to a book from Chapter 1 of Lizzie Skurnick’s reading memoir Shelf Discovery, on memorable heroines, to re-read Judy Blume’s Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself. In Week 1 of the Summer Shelf Discovery reading bender, several readers had commented on how enjoyable it was, and one reader noted a Blume character pattern of difficult mom/nice dad, which I can confirm in this book.

Sally is, indeed, a terrific heroine, with her imaginative stories, her incessant curiosity (asking her parents exactly WHAT kind of disease she could catch in a bath house) and using words and phrases she doesn’t know, like ‘bordello’ and ‘love and other indoor sports’. In post-WWII New Jersey, Sally’s dentist father rents the family a place in Florida. Sally’s older brother has been sick, so the rest of the family moves south for the winter: Sally, her mother, brother and grandmother nicknamed Ma Fanny. Sally has to adjust to a new school, new friends, and frenemies, who often inhabit Blume novels. She copes by telling herself stories, one of which is how a strange neighbor, Mr. Zavodsky, is really Hitler in disguise. ,

The book is often laugh-out-loud funny, and is entertaining in the lack of OVERT THEME other Blume books have. (Margaret: periods and religion; Blubber: bullies and friendship; Deenie: scoliosis; etc.) Set in the 1940’s, it’s supposed to be Blume’s most autobiographical book. Of the ones I’ve re-read on my summer reading bender, this is the Blume I’ve enjoyed best by far, perhaps because it’s about a complex, engaging character rather than a less-interesting every-kid dealing with a particular issue.

Greetings and Salutations, friends! I was in central Ohio visiting family last week, where there was no wifi because of power outages due to a series of v. bad storms.

Back home with connectivity, and will be returning to the Shelf Discovery writing/comment approving today!

As part of my summer reading bender Summer of Shelf Discovery, Chapter 4 of Lizzie Skurnick’s reading memoir, Shelf Discovery, is “Read ‘Em and Weep: Tearing Up the Pages” about the books we read (and re-read) that made us cry. The first book of the chapter and the first one I chose to re-read was Jacob Have I Loved by Katherine Paterson, a book which has followed me through all my moves.

Written from an adult perspective looking back on childhood, it’s narrated by Louise, the elder of twins who resented her younger, prettier, musically talented twin. There was a part in the middle about an inappropriate crush that I’d utterly forgotten. As a girl, I identified fiercely with Louise, and found myself right back with my younger self as I read this, which reminded me of one of my favorite quotes from Joan Didion, from “On Keeping a Notebook”

I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind’s door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends. We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were.

This book is a perfect example of a characters who DOESN’T forget. It’s complicated, sweet, and sad without being a message or a SAD EVENT novel. I loved it all over again.

Somehow I never read Lois Duncan’s Daughters of Eve back in the day. Its 70’s feminism is a fascinating compare/contrast with Beverly Cleary’s idyllic 60’s pre-Vietnam Sister of the Bride. I read it out of Chapter 3, “Danger Girls” from Lizzie Skurnick’s Shelf Discovery.

With Daughters of Eve, some things I saw coming, some things I didn’t. It reminded me of the after-school special The Wave, with its charismatic leader and students led down problematic paths. (Book version of The Wave here.)

Perhaps it was me, but I thought that it did a decent job of showing that bad people can represent decent causes and undermine them, though I think it can also be read as an indictment of 70’s feminism/feminists.

The post script was sad and thought provoking. I wondered what happened to other of the characters, but should probably go back and make those up myself, since I complained of how Raskin did that in The Westing Game.

A note of caution: Many of the Duncan novels were recently “updated” by sprinkling them with modern devices like cell phones and such in order to market them in admittedly attractive new editions. You can read takes on these updates from Amy at New Century Reading and M at Mental Multivitamin. I recommend seeking out the originals. Tech moves so fast these days that the updates are probably already outdated. While I heartily endorse keeping these books in print and am thrilled that a new generation is finding them (though I did discourage my nearly 9yo son from sniffing around them, which he did all the more intently when I tried to shoo him off; should I have done this? I was reading them when I was 9, I think.) I think readers can engage just fine with books set at a certain point in time. If Starring Sally J and Jacob Have I Loved are set in the 40’s, why not the Duncans set in the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s?