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Nothing's Fair In Fifth Grade: Pleading The Fifth

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TheFormerJuneBronson
05/26/09

In reply to Nothing's Fair In Fifth Grade: Pleading The Fifth
Awww, I was away and missed this! These books are among my very favorites. I think I read How Do You Lose... first, and then all the others. Still read them regularly. I Never Asked You To Understand Me is particularly heartbreaking. DeClements is/was a teacher, like Paula Danziger, and it really shows.
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hippichx sez PEACE PLEASE
05/23/09

In reply to Nothing's Fair In Fifth Grade: Pleading The Fifth
this post and all the comments make me realize what a dork i was growing up... any of you read on the origin of species in fifth grade? i was obsessed. no wonder i never learned about social norms. i've never heard of any of these books!

anyway, looking at them now... fat shaming?! i'm not sure the concept would have occurred to me in fifth grade, which makes me wonder if these books are introducing the concept more than demoralizing it.
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Betty Bea Getty McClanahan
05/23/09

In reply to Nothing's Fair In Fifth Grade: Pleading The Fifth
UGH!

Reading this post makes me think of this one book that's driven me crazy for weeks...it's about a girl who starts her first day of high school, and she wakes up with a pimple and steals her mom's pancake makeup, then drinks Coke floats (like a rootbeer float but with Coke ew) for breakfast. And then on the school bus she finds out her friend Gretchen got tits over the summer, and blah blah she wore white boots that were too small.

Also there's a mean giant blond girl with acrylic nails, and someone gets in a shitload of trouble and ends up in a cop car. And there's a home ec class involved somehow.
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Maulleigh
05/22/09

In reply to Nothing's Fair In Fifth Grade: Pleading The Fifth
I remember this book! I remember during the sleepover, the mom realizes Elsie's been holding her pants together with safety pins so she offers to take them in for her. And then Elsie's mom gets mad for some reason? I just remember the safety pins.
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bluebears
05/22/09

In reply to Nothing's Fair In Fifth Grade: Pleading The Fifth
AHHHHH! I read this like a MILLION times and that was my exact copy and I loved loved loved that cover art.
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thisisunclear
05/22/09

In reply to Nothing's Fair In Fifth Grade: Pleading The Fifth
OMG this cover, how could I forget?! And the indignity of naming her Elsie!

I still remember the smelly egg-salad sandwiches as being her worst character trait.
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lilad
05/22/09

In reply to Nothing's Fair In Fifth Grade: Pleading The Fifth
!

Finally a book I actually had as a child (I think I'm a bit younger than the target audience...)

Yay!
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kaiwhakamarie
05/22/09

In reply to Nothing's Fair In Fifth Grade: Pleading The Fifth
Oh my gawd, I'd forgotten this book completely...until I saw the cover art peeking at me in the corner of my computer screen. I was like, 'I KNOW those girls!'

Man, I have to find this book now, and re-read it. Even if I am 27.
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f_t_e
05/22/09

In reply to Nothing's Fair In Fifth Grade: Pleading The Fifth
GOD, it only gets better in How Do You Lose Those 9th Grade Blues and Seventeen and In Between when Elsie gets to take over as the narrator and is so much more likable than Jenifer. She's lost all the weight and is HOT but still has trouble dealing with it and she has a terrible boyfriend named CRADDOC and she sings like an angel and she wrestles with forgiving her mother and then FINALLY she and Jack hook up because it turns out they've been in love ALL ALONG and it's hot and sweet and I was SO HAPPY as a child that she realized he was the guy for her and he turns into a logger and and and and...

Yeah, I might have been a little too invested in these books. ;)
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lilyblaze
05/22/09

@f_t_e: I reread those two recently and got very invested in them, too. And as a grown woman, I was so happy that Elsie stood up to her mother and left Craddoc for Jack. If I had a daughter, I'd give her both of those books because they teach valuable life lessons that involve the opposite sex. Especially Seventeen and In Between. It's so true that if you don't make your own choices about sex, guys will be more than happy to make them for you. The strongest part of that book is when Elsie comes into her own and doesn't give in to Craddoc pressuring her to have sex. She makes the decision herself because she's just not feeling it for him (but she imagines Jack naked and wonders if the carpet matches the curtains), and I like how the moral dilemma of premarital sex is never mentioned.

It's a shame that those two books have been out of print for over a decade.
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Red-headed bookworm
05/22/09

@lilyblaze: They are out of print? How sad. I think I had the whole Elsie series. I wonder what happened to them...hmmm, they could be in a box in my parents' basement. I'll have to look for them.
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tart.
05/22/09

In reply to Nothing's Fair In Fifth Grade: Pleading The Fifth
Does anyone remember the books about the mean blonde girl with the one crooked bicuspid? I think her name was Tammy, but that seems wrong. There were several of them with similar awkward adolescence / evil parents themes as Nothing's Fair in Fifth Grade, and I read them at about the same time.
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tart.
05/22/09

@noros~albastru: Oh! Nevermind, somebody answered it upthread while I was typing - Taffy Sinclair!!
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EdnasEdibles
05/22/09

@noros~albastru: Ha! I'm glad I wasn't the only one who oddly thought of ol' Taffy and her messed up teeth.
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bluebears
05/22/09

@noros~albastru: YES! I was like oh "crooked bicuspid" rings SUCH a bell.
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VeryFancyBunny
05/22/09

In reply to Nothing's Fair In Fifth Grade: Pleading The Fifth
That cover is iconic. Man. I remember really liking all the little details on it when I was a kid, and realizing how much you could infer about the characters just from the cover alone!

That said, the book borders on tween-nihilism, I swear. So downbeat. And the last-chapter revelation, when Elsie can finally "see her shoes," is a strange moment of pseudo-happiness worthy only of a Todd Solondz movie, I think.
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SkipToMyLou
05/22/09

@VeryFancyBunny:href="#c13025283">fol_de_rol: Dear god, me too! It must have been 20 years since I've read that. Even reading the description of the book and the commentary didn't remind me that *that book* was where I read that line. I've thought about it a lot since then.

@fol_de_rol: And you know what's weird? On the cover, and by the descriptions, Elise just isn't that fat. I know because even when I was pregnant I could still see my feet. Yep, that line stuck in my mind.
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millefleur
05/22/09

In reply to Nothing's Fair In Fifth Grade: Pleading The Fifth
I loved this book and still have it somewhere, along with the sequel "Sixth Grade Can Really Kill You." I must have read them both a hundred times. Elsie though? That name for that character really disturbed me, even then.
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bluebears
05/22/09

@millefleur: I actually liked the Sixth Grade...book better. But I loved them both.
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momentsofabsurdity
05/22/09

In reply to Nothing's Fair In Fifth Grade: Pleading The Fifth
I loved this book, I read it over and over again. I think it's why I dislike the name Elsie even today -- because even though I know I was supposed to feel sympathetic to her at the end, all I could think was "She stole people's lunch money!!"
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Gnatalby
05/22/09

In reply to Nothing's Fair In Fifth Grade: Pleading The Fifth
I feel like there's a sequel, from Elsie's point of view when she's in high school, and not fat, but is still sort of shy from being fat?

And a boyfriend gives her a puppy because it bonds for life? Unless this is another book I"m thinking of.
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Gnatalby
05/22/09

@Gnatalby: Amazon says: Seventeen and In-Between.

I loved this book.
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chatterboxwriting
05/22/09

@Gnatalby: Oh, I forgot about that book. I was going to say it might be How Do You Lose Those Ninth Grade Blues?. I'll have to see if I can find these and read them again - I remember liking them a lot.
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la.donna.pietra
05/22/09

@Gnatalby: The puppy (a Chow named Honey Bear) shows up in How Do You Lose..., which I read obsessively. In case you can't tell.
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misspell
05/22/09

In reply to Nothing's Fair In Fifth Grade: Pleading The Fifth
The second plotfinder really reminds me of Homecoming, that ya novel by Cynthia Voigt about four kids (I know that's too many) whose father is a deadbeat and disappeared before the story even starts, and whose mother takes them somewhere in a car and just leaves them there, so Dicey (the oldest) has to use her wits to keep the other kids safe and fed. They end up with an ornery grandmother, but I believe it's a happy ending. I remember that being a truly awesome book, but I might be wrong...I should revisit it again. Anyone read that one?
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zombie.nancy is a godess of fierce
05/22/09

@misspell: YES! And the follow up was Dicey's Song. I had to reenact a scene from Homecoming for 9th Grade English. It was also made into a TV movie
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zombie.nancy is a godess of fierce
05/22/09

@misspell: I recommend Cythnia Voigt's 'the Calendar Papers'
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justcallmeangel
05/22/09

@misspell: Yes, I've read it a few times. I think I've read all Cynthia Voigt books--Izzy Willy Nilly was really good too. That Dicey kicked ass, keeping her family together. That was SO good. There's another one too, about the kids' uncle, that takes place when he is young and livnig wtih the mean grandmother/his mother (who has a good heart). If that makes any sense. That one is the Runner. Not as good as Diceys Song or Homecoming.
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misspell
05/22/09

@justcallmeangel: Totally - when I was 12 I believed that I could use Dicey's tactics if ever I found myself lost and alone in the world. She was definitely a feminist.
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