Shhh! SVH!

You probably knew that the Sweet Valley High series was re-released a couple years ago and that Diablo Cody is working on bringing it to the big screen. (I'm personally looking forward to seeing Enid all geek chic.) But did you know about Sweet Valley Confidential? It's Jessica and Elizabeth, 10 years later! I think it's only one book, not a new series. It comes out in March, and I previewed the first chapter—not cause I'm a member of Pi Beta Alpha or on the Oracle staff or anything like that; anyone can sign up on the website to read it. However, in case you don't want to, I am happy to share the following tidbits of Elizabeth Wakefield's thoroughly depressing 27-year-old life:

• She has to have THREE locks on the door of her shitty apartment because she lives in New York, where it's like sooo dangerous;
• She orders a PORK CHOP out at a restaurant and brings the leftovers home in a doggie bag;
• Her purse is a Prada knockoff;
• She works for a "throwaway" weekly covering the Off-Broadway scene (not even regular Broadway!) that's so cheap and unknown she has to buy show tickets at the TKTS booth or sneak in during intermission;
• She considers sleeping with her boss, a nice guy with a great body (in the narrator's words). "Right from the start, Elizabeth could tell he was attracted to her. It had probably helped in the hiring, though she had decent credentials, but a little gratitude wouldn't hurt." Well, nothing says "thanks for hiring me for my looks" like a roll in the hay, right, Liz?
• She recently had a "three-week mini affair spread out over two months" (huh?) during which she "cried after every orgasm." For real, that's what it says.
• She listens to Beyonce and Justin Timberlake;
• She sleeps in an oversized Sweet Valley T-shirt but lets people assume she's from LA;
• And Bruce Patman is her best friend!

Also, she's out of ice cubes, and Jessica has done something to hurt her so deeply that she's turned into a sobbing basket-case. Oh, how the mighty fall. I can't decide if I'm dying to read the rest of this or glad I only had to suffer through 15 pages of a sneak peek.

The Kids are All Right

Some books you're supposed to read in ninth grade English but maybe you don't because they're so effing boring. (The Grapes of Wrath.) Some books you do read, and you tolerate them. Others totally take you by surprise—sure they're literary or whatever, but they're also good. You can't really relate to the characters' situations but you can relate to the way they feel. And 15 years later, you read them again, and they're still good. Maybe better.

Like Homecoming, by Cynthia Voigt. When I checked this out from the library to read for the Shelf Discovery Challenge, I was intimidated by its length and seemingly tiny font size. For real, compared to the YA books I've been reading, it looked hard. Sometimes I can't believe the stuff I used to read for fun back in high school and college. (Like, The Picture of Dorian Gray. I remember it as an awesome book, but these days I'd rather pick up the next installment of The A-List.) Still, right from the first page, Homecoming is riveting. Dicey, James, Maybeth and Sammy Tillerman are the most scrappy and resilient kids I know. After their mom abandons them in a mall parking lot, they basically walk across the whole state of Connecticut to get to their Great Aunt Cilla's house. AND THEN SHE'S NOT EVEN THERE. (Don't worry, that's not the end of the book, so if you haven't read it yet I didn't just spoil everything for you.)

Julie Just's recent New York Times article decries the absence of parents, or "good" parents, in YA lit. Yes, I think the general lack of parenting in the genre is unrealistic. But one of the best things about YA lit is kids doing it on their own. Dicey realizes almost immediately that their mom isn't coming back and that it's up to her take care of her siblings. She doesn't go to the police, because she doesn't want them to be split up into different foster homes. Instead, she budgets what little money they have for food, studies maps for the best routes, lets people think she's a boy if it'll make the situation better. And she's only 13!

There's one part in the book when Dicey reads the epitaph on a gravestone that implies no one is ever really home until they're dead. Surviving as a nomad, she returns to this idea from time to time. Maybe she and her siblings could just keep on the move, taking in odd jobs and living off the land, until they turn 18. Maybe they don't really need a "home." Maybe all they need is each other.

--

This marks my last post for the Shelf Discovery Challenge, for which I read six books in six months. The final list:

My Darling, My Hamburger by Paul Zindel

Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself by Judy Blume

From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg

Jacob Have I Loved by Katherine Paterson

Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh

Homecoming by Cynthia Voigt

The Glue Holding Us Together, and Other Cheesiness

Here's a double-whammy for ya: This is my 100th post AND I'm writing about the Baby-sitters Club prequel. Life in blog-land can't get much better than that.

The Summer Before is Ann M. Martin's (and Scholastic's, and probably David Levithan's) gift to us, the old-school fans. It's written in a reflective style, as if the girls are much older and looking back on that summer before seventh grade, before forming the Baby-sitters Club—which, according to Kristy, was "something we would belong to, in one sense or another, for the rest of our lives."

In the spirit of a Super Special, the chapters alternate between Kristy, Claudia, Mary Anne, and Stacey's point of views, and each girl has her own sub-plot. Kristy misses her dad and is not so into her mom dating Watson. Mary Anne starts baby-sitting, but of course her super-strict father has a bunch of rules about that. Claudia has her first sort-of boyfriend and feels herself drifting away from Kristy and Mary Anne. And Stacey moves to Stoneybrook, away from NYC and all her bad memories of the last year (including "Her Royal Meanness" Laine).

The book is not exactly action-packed, so I don't want to give away too much of the plot. But if you haven't read it yet, you can look forward to a fun pool party scene, flashes of Mary Anne's bitchy side, and even a little bit of pre-stroke Mimi. I also enjoyed a lot of the character continuity; Mary Anne is into sewing outfits for dolls, Claudia tears her room apart putting together the perfect outfit, and sophisticated Stacey luvs pigs. (Plus, Kristy gets to say, "I love being in charge.") Questions left unanswered: Did Mary Anne invent the Pike smorgasbord? If Jenny Prezzioso was a new client in book #4, what's she doing in the prequel? And just how does the Kristy/Mary Anne flashlight code work, anyway?

Conclusion: Eight- and nine-year-old girls of today would probably be better introduced to the series with the graphic novels or the re-releases. Children of the '80s and early '90s may not feel that all of their hopes and dreams for a BSC prequel have been fulfilled by The Summer Before. I don't think our hopes and dreams for the BSC ever can be. But the book does serve as a nice bookend to the series, with Graduation Day on the other side. You should read it.

Reviewed from my personal copy, purchased at the elementary school book fair!

With My Little Eye

I did the whole notebook thing. When I was 9 or 10, inspired by Harriet the Spy, I spent maybe two or three afternoons eavesdropping on my neighbors' conversations and jotting down dialogue. I wasn't hanging out in any dumbwaiters, just sitting in a lounge chair in my backyard, which happened to be within hearing distance of next door. It wasn't that exciting, so I went back to making up stories—and occasionally writing commentary about my fifth grade classmates—instead of "spying."

I know I'm not the only one. Mallory got her spy on during the trip to Disney World in Baby-sitters Super Special #1. And you all did, too, right?

Anyway, as an aspiring-writer geek child, I wanted to be like Harriet. Not just like Harriet, because I thought she was kind of loud and bossy. Re-reading the book now, I would add "bratty." But I still like her! I like how particular she is about certain things, like having her cake and milk at the same time every day. (Jealous!) I like how she is so thoughtful, although mostly introspective, and makes an effort to do the things she believes to be worthwhile. I like her super-rad spying outfit, which consists of "an ancient pair of blue jeans ... an old dark-blue sweatshirt with a hood ... an old pair of blue sneakers with holes over each of her little toes ... [and] a pair of black-rimmed spectacles with no glass in them"—not to mention her tool belt, which carries a flashlight, notebook, pens, canteen, and boy scout knife.

Things I took special notice of as an adult:

• Harriet is a rich kid. When I was younger, I kind of thought that everyone in the olden days had a nanny and a cook. Now I know better.
• Harriet's parents send her to a shrink after the whole notebook incident at school. She plays Monopoly with him, even though she thinks it's the most boring game ever invented.
• Harriet's mom talks about someone being "stoned out of his mind" at a party!
• "Ole Golly just had indoor things and outdoor things. She never wore anything recognizable as a skirt, a jacket, or a sweater.  She just had yards and yards of tweed which enveloped her like a lot of discarded blankets, which ballooned out when she walked, and which she referred to as her Things."
• Harriet's best friend Sport cooks and cleans for his dad, and he either wants to be a baseball player or a certified public accountant when he grows up. I love this. 
• I never knew that Louise Fitzhugh drew the illustrations in addition to writing the book. My favorites are Ole Golly, Harriet spying, and Harriet doing interpretive dance as an onion.

Fifth book for the Shelf Discovery Challenge! I just started reading #6.

Team Jacob

I've been on a Katherine Paterson kick for the past few months. I watched the movie version of Bridge to Terabithia, and found out that the story was based on the death of her son's best friend. I read The Great Gilly Hopkins for my children's lit class and la-la-loved it. And most recently, I picked up Jacob Have I Loved.

This is another one that I was really uninterested in as a child. I know I do this a lot, but I'm going to blame the title. It's part of a quote from the Bible (there's no actual Jacob character in the book), and even though I didn't know that before, it always sounded terribly old-fashioned to me. (If it had been Jacob I Have Loved, that might have been a different story.)

Well, the story isn't set in B.C. times, but it does take place well before I was born—in the 1940s. Not a problem. The protag, Sara Louise (or "Wheeze," as she is unfortunately nicknamed), lives on an island in the Chesapeake Bay and alternately spends her time crabbing with her dorky male sidekick and making herself sick with envy over her beautiful, talented twin sister, Caroline. The book spans several years in Wheeze's life and doesn't center on any one event, but there were two scenes in the book that stood out to me as the most exciting. The first is when Caroline has a brilliant idea for getting people on the island to adopt a bunch of homeless kitties. And second ... second is when Wheeze starts to get a tingly feeling about the 70-year-old captain who has recently returned to the island!

So there are some juicy parts, and overall it's a satisfying read. But Jacob Have I Loved is not my new favorite. K Paterson is a masterful writer without a doubt; I just found the tale of Wheeze a bit too sprawling for my tastes. C'est la vie.

This is my fourth book for the Shelf Discovery Challenge. Just two more to go!

Night at the Museum

From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler is forever in my mind linked with Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. Both have a mysterious Mrs. in the title, and both were first introduced to me at the elementary school library. I can't remember if mean old Mrs. C (yes, there is such a thing as a "mean" librarian) read them out loud to us or just showed the movies—the point is that I am fairly certain I had never read The Mixed-Up Files on my own, until now.

It's about 11-year-old Claudia Kincaid, who decides to run away from home in Connecticut and bring one of her younger brothers with her. She picks 9-year-old Jamie, mostly for his stinginess—the kid hardly spends a dime of his allowance and has plenty saved up. The two head to Manhattan by train and hole up at the Met, where they hide in bathroom stalls at closing time each night and blend in with school groups during the day.

Of course, there is a mystery to solve. The museum has acquired a sculpture of an angel that may or may not be the work of Michelangelo. Can Claudia and Jaime figure it out before it's time to go home? Maybe, with the help of one Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.

From the suburban ennui that drives Claudia's adventure to her need to be "different" as a result of it, Claudia is as much adolescent as she is wandering 20-something. Not only does she want to be different from how she used to be, but she wants to be different from everyone else. Claudia thinks:

When she was grown, she could stay the way she was and move to some place like India where no one dressed as she did, or she could dress like someone else ... and still live in an ordinary place like Greenwich.

Of course, New York City is the kind of place where you can do both.

This is my third post for the Shelf Discovery Challenge. Halfway there!

Book Trailer: Weetzie Bat

Book trailers are a big thing with librarians, it seems. I went with a classic for my first try.

Starring Judy Blume as Sally Freedman

I memorized the spines on the spinning paperback display at my local library probably by the time I was 12. This was where they had all the Paula Danziger books, like The Cat Ate My Gymsuit and There's a Bat in Bunk Five, and Ann M. Martin's older titles like Just a Summer Romance. I must have spent hours twirling that rack, checking to make sure all my favorites were there and keeping my eye out for new additions.

Less often, I wandered over to the middle grade/YA hardcover section. These books were heavy and dull-looking, with less flashy covers. But there were a couple of Judy Blumes that I liked to visit: Just as Long as We're Together, and Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself. They were thick but completely accessible, and reading them gave me a sense of accomplishment that was missing upon finishing a Sweet Valley High (unless it was a Super Magna Edition, but that's a different story).

Starring Sally J. is the book that reveals Judy Blume’s true age. She was born in 1938, and Sally's story—set in 1947—might be viewed as a nostalgic look at the author’s own childhood. Reading this as a kid, I mostly liked all of the "new girl at school” parts. Choice phrases like "love and other indoor sports," old-fashioned details about talking on a party line phone, and the tiddly winks scene in the pool were also memorable. I think my brain kind of skipped over the Hitler stuff back then. Now it seems kind of cute (thinking her scary neighbor was actually Hitler), but in a sad way. Judy Blume writes on her website:

When I was nine and ten I was a lot like Sally—curious, imaginative, a worrier. I was always making up stories inside my head. In my stories, which I never wrote down or shared, I was brave and strong. I led a life of drama, adventure and fame. I think the character of Sally explains how and even why I became a writer.

On behalf of story-making and book-reading girls everywhere, thank you.

This is my second post for the Shelf Discovery Challenge. I'll have four more over the first four months of 2010.

Top Nine of '09

I'm giving myself 20 minutes to write this. My personal nine best things that happened to me in 2009, in kinda random order:

1) I started my own Etsy shop to sell my zines at welshrabbit.etsy.com. It's been a lot of fun, and it's probably the closest I'll ever come to my dream of owning a boutique. I continued my library school zine Scatter Gram and started a new perzine called Winsome & Wise.

2) I took Resources for Young Adults, the most fun class of my grad school career. Ten weeks, 20 YA books. I got to read Sloppy Firsts; The Earth, My Butt & Other Big, Round Things; TTYL; The Princess Diaries and more—for homework!

3) I taught 10 workshops to university students, faculty and staff at my library internship, proving I am not completely incapable of speaking in front of a group of people.

4) I traveled north to Providence and Boston and south to Charleston, SC.

5) I became an album cover star when my friend Matt used a picture of me for his new CD, Spiteful Creatures.

6) I got a super-cute pink bike helmet and started riding in the city.

7) I dressed up as Lisa Simpson for Halloween. (Red dress and shoes, yellow tights, pearl choker, and yellow headpiece made from cardstock.)

8) I spent a lot of time working with little kiddies as a school library observer, summer camp helper, and kindergarten classroom volunteer.

9) I am going to ring in the new year with the cutest boy I know. (OK, that's cheating since it didn't happen yet.)

Rollin' with the Homies

Brittany Murphy died this morning at the age of 32. In addition to starring in two of my favorite movies—Clueless and Girl, Interrupted—she was super-sweet in Uptown Girls and hilarious as the voice of Luanne on King of the Hill. And does anyone else remember her way back when on that show The Torkelsons? I loved this girl. RIP, Tai.

I'd Like Fries with That

I avoided My Darling, My Hamburger forever because of its title.* Don't get me wrong, I love my Big Macs; however, there is nothing romantic about the word hamburger, and I admit to certain feelings of repulsion upon hearing it. I would never write a book with "hamburger" in the title, and I wasn't so sure if I wanted to read one. Coupled with the fact that Paul Zindel's first book is called The Pigman, this did not do much for me in the way of girly appeal. Truthfully, even though My Darling, My Hamburger is the story of two high school couples, it's not really a chick book. It's more of a general teen angst fest, which is just fine by me.

Sean & Liz are the cool couple, and Maggie & Dennis are the dorkier friends that they set up. Sean has a history of suicidal thoughts and wants to do it with Liz, but she's afraid of disappointing her mom (who pushes statues of the Madonna like dope) and of getting knocked up.

Maggie and Dennis pretty much go along with whatever Liz and Sean say (which ultimately screws up their relationship). Maggie may seem kind of boring, but she's the one girls are supposed to relate to, the "nice" girl. Liz, on the other hand, gives in to Sean, ends up pregnant, and makes her BFF miss the prom to accompany her to the creepy back-alley abortion doctor. Super interesting that this was published in 1969, aka before Roe v. Wade. If characters who get abortions are controversial these days—when it's legal—imagine what this must have stirred up back then.

This book is super realistic, and therefore I found it quite depressing. There is no razzle-dazzle in Liz and Maggie's world. A skeezy older guy drives them to the abortion place, and everyone's parents are kind of jerky. The ending isn't happy or sad, just "real." I think this might be a classic because it was groundbreaking? Kind of like a precursor to Forever. But I don't see how anyone could LOVE it.

This is my first post for the Shelf Discovery Challenge! One down, five to go.

*The "hamburger" part comes from a teacher's answer to the age-old question "How do you stop a boy who wants to go all the way?" Her response: suggest going for hamburgers.

I Can Totally Do This

I have been a big fan of Lizzie Skurnick's Fine Lines column on Jezebel, and I was ultra-excited when her book Shelf Discovery came out. Just this week I finally ordered it from BN.com. (Yeah, I'm an Amazon girl, but I won a $20 Barnes & Noble gift card, so...)

Anyhow, the point of this is to announce that I will be participating in Booking Mama's Shelf Discovery Challenge. The deal is you have to read six books from Shelf Discovery over the next six months (well, less than six months because I'm joining a little late—but it's from now until the end of April) and of course, blog about them! It's going to be super fun. I mean, I already read this stuff anyway, but checking out everyone else's posts will be even better.

I'm not sure exactly which six books I'm going to do, but these are on my short list:

• My Darling, My Hamburger*
• From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
• Harriet the Spy
• Blubber
• The Cat Ate My Gymsuit
• The Westing Game
• Jacob Have I Loved*
• Homecoming
• My Sweet Audrina*

Most will be re-reads. If it's starred, that means I will be reading it for the first time. I haven't cracked open any of them in at least 10 years, but I'm hoping maybe over Thanksgiving I can dig out some of the old Judy Blumes and Paula Danzigers. Here's to you, Rachel Robinson! (Oops, that's not on the list ...)

From the Archives: "A Fairy Touched You With Her Wand"

Today was a sick day for me, which meant watching a couple episodes of my favorite online TV shows, catching a few extra Zs, and picking a mindless book to read while I rested on the couch incapacitated. The winner: Sharing Susan by Eve Bunting (1991).

Susan Moretti's parents have a secret, and whatever it is, it's not good news. Are they getting a divorce? Did someone lose their job? Oh, no—Susan was switched at birth. The other girl (Marlene, or the real Susan, however you want to think about it) has died, and suddenly Susan's bio-mom and dad, the Stobbels, want her as a replacement. The parents meet with their lawyers and decide that after finishing out sixth grade in her current school, Susan will spend most of the summer with her new family, go back to her non-bio parents for the month of August, and then start living full-time with the Stobbels and their four-year-old son Jeremy after that. With visits to Mr. and Mrs. Moretti on holidays and weekends.

Understandably unhappy camper Susan writes desperate letters to her grandparents (the ones she always thought were her grandparents), acts like a brat, and even shaves off her eyebrows in an attempt to eliminate her resemblance to Mr. Stobbel. But she's pretty quickly won over by Jeremy, and in the end we all learn a lesson: Love is not a candy bar. Um, something about not running out of pieces to give away?

So yeah, this book has a totally unrealistic storyline. Said Kirkus Reviews back in the day:

Surely the wise, kind parents ... would consult a 12-year-old concerning her own fate; surely taking her from the only parents she knows for a majority of the time, without her consent, is not in her best interests; and surely any transition would be more painful, and take longer, than is suggested here.

But it clearly tapped into the 10-12 year old mindset. Reading this inspired one of my aborted early novels, which was coincidentally about a girl who was switched at birth! Except that I think the other switch-ee was still alive, cause that seems to make things more interesting. I must have also been influenced by the 1991 TV movie Switched at Birth, based on the true story of Kimberly Mays and Arlena Twigg. I remember feeling sorry for Arlena, who got sent home with the wrong parents and saddled with such a country hick name and then died. In conclusion, being switched at birth became a minor fascination for me around the age of 10. Thank you, Eve Bunting.

My Favorite Mix Tape

This tape used to live in my mom's Honda Accord, back when I used to drive to the mall or music lessons or wherever.

It was given to me by a girl named Ryan, one of my few "online friends" from the late '90s/early '00s.

I never knew I liked Sonic Youth or Prince or the Pixies until I listened to the songs on this mix.

I have since lost the tape, but I still have the case. Ryan, where are you now?

The B-side:
Prince - Raspberry Beret
James - Laid
Velocity Girl - Can't Stop Smiling
Archers of Loaf - Wrong
Adorable - Homeboy
Hole - Whose Porno You Burn
Nirvana - Happy Song*
REM - Radio Free Europe
Luscious Jackson - Naked Eye

* = Also known as Verse Chorus Verse. ("And if you save yourself, you will make him happy.")

From the Archives: "Don't Feed the Rabbit Lettuce!"

A cute little story for and about bookworms, Eve Bunting's Sixth Grade Sleepover (1986) answers the age-old question "How can you go to a school lock-in if you're afraid of the dark?"

Janie and her friend Claudia are RABBITS (members of Read a Book, Bring it to School) who love taking care of the class bunny Pebbles, worshiping the school reading specialist Mrs. Golden, and crushing on boy RABBITS Blake and Malcolm. When the sixth grade RABBITS-only sleepover is announced, Claudia's psyched. But Janie has a problem—stemming from the fact that her babysitter used to lock her in a dark hall closet! For real.

I love how this book makes reading seem like the coolest thing ever. We never had a reading club at my school, but I always participated in the library's summer reading program and remember being really psyched the one year I tied another girl for most books read.

From the Archives: "A Duplicate of Michael Jackson's Sequined Glove"

A couple of weeks ago, I rescued a box of old books from the depths of my parents' attic. Alongside almost half of my Baby-sitters Club collection and classics like the Ramona books, I found a few odd single-titles. Of course, I couldn't wait to revisit these. The first one I picked up to re-read was Channel 10 from Nowhere (1985).

I remembered this as being a cool, kinda creepy book. I did not recall how super-short it is (62 pages) or that it was published as a Weekly Reader Book. The author, Lewis K. Parker, seems to have written mostly non-fiction for kids. However, this story definitely had me hooked back in the day.

Rachel is a normal 12-year-old girl who exhibits an interest in basketball and is lucky enough to have her own TV in her bedroom. One day her pesky little bro breaks off the knob—how quaint. So she calls a TV repair service from the phonebook and is promptly visited by two weird, maybe alien repair dudes. As they leave, they assure her that Channel 10 will come in nice and clearly. But Rachel's never gotten Channel 10 on her TV set. And it's not even listed in the TV guide.

So what's on Channel 10? SCENES FROM THE FUTURE! Rachel tunes in to some pretty innocuous stuff, like the dedication of a time capsule at her town's new post office. But it's not all Norman Rockwell hunky-dory information that's broadcast. And if she uses her knowledge of what she sees to change the course of history, Rachel could be in big trouble.

I think that I liked this little book because of how much fun it was to imagine what I would do if I were tuning in to Channel 10.

I also used to wish I could freeze time like the girl on Out of this World.

Good Trash

Just wanted to share this VC Andrews reader challenge from Reviewer X (a pretty neat blog I just discovered) and The Chick Manifesto. I don't think I'll have the time to participate—it involves reading 11 VC Andrews books in '09, which is a lot to add to my already busy reading schedule—but I fully support the promotion of these guilty pleasures. Go join the club! Just be wary of anyone who offers powdered sugar donuts.

Valley of the Dolls

Playing with dolls always struck me as nothing but childhood squared, a child doing a childish thing with a simulacrum of a child. It was like some hideous vortex.
—Meghan Daum, "Toy Children"

Daum was a teddy bear kind of girl, and in the essay from her book My Misspent Youth, she celebrates stuffed animals for being "more closely connected with the imaginative world than dolls are."

I was a serial monogamist when it came to childhood sleeping partners, first cuddling up with a Puffalump panda I called Leopold, then the big white bear that was a present from my third grade teacher, and later a succession of Macy's holiday plush toys.

I loved all those guys, but in the light of day it was no secret that I preferred my dolls. A recent purging of my parents' attic reintroduced me to a My Child with dark pigtails and soft skin, Rainbow Brite in her shiny spacegirl dress, and a small crop of Cabbage Patch Kids. Yes, I used to have fun pretending the Preemie was my little baby. However, it was the more grown-up dolls that held my interest the longest. Molly McIntyre and her imaginary 1940s world provided hours of play, especially as my collection of her clothes and accessories grew (and grew and grew). And anyone who has read chapter one of this book knows what can go on with Barbies.

Maybe I will become a crazy doll lady if adopting a puppy doesn't work out.

Dandy Andies

For a while my secret wish was to have a nickname—Andie, specifically. It never quite took off. But get out the popcorn, cause tonight I'm celebrating my favorite Andies and Andys of the silver screen.



Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway) in The Devil Wears Prada
Yeah, she should have stayed away from that sleazy journalist dude and made it work with Adrian Grenier. But her makeover could only have been more exciting if it had been orchestrated by Cher Horowitz herself.



Andie Walsh (Molly Ringwald) in Pretty in Pink
All she wants to do is date the cute rich guy, but she's so embarassed about how poor she is (she literally lives on the wrong side of the tracks) and his rich friends are all super jerks. Once again, thank goodness for the clothes.

And my favorite: Andy Carmichael (Kerri Green) in The Goonies
This pretty and popular cheerleader accidentally made out with Sean Astin, was BFF with supercool Martha Plimpton, and gave me the Andie-as-a-nickname idea in the first place.

P.S. Dishonorable mention goes to magazine editor Andie Anderson (Kate Hudson) from How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. She gets minus points for a stupid last name, a ridiculous plot and an obnoxious leading man. Then there's Andrea Zuckerman of 9021-old fame, who could have been an Andie if she wasn't so snobby about the pronunciation of her name.

Broke My Camera Just by Posing

Ann M. Martin knows life isn't all pizza toasts and baby parades, and back in '87 she proved it by writing Slam Book. I'm guessing and hoping that this is her darkest novel ever. I don't want to give too much away, but let's just say there's this slam book. And all the kids in ninth grade write nasty secret things about each other in it. And someone ends up dead.

Oh my lord!

In Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great, the slam book scene ends in a model airplane fight after comments like "Hair: needs washing" and "Face: weird eyebrows."

My one and only real-life slam book experience was at an eighth-grade sleepover back when "Loser" was the song of the moment. I think we got bored with it before it was my turn to leave the room. Thank goodness.