[Kiev, September 27. Image via Getty]

An elderly woman cries in front of the Minora Monument on Babiy Yar ravine in Kiev, on September 27, 2008, during a mourning ceremony marking the 68th anniversary of the beginning of Jews mass execution in September 1941. Babiy Yar, place in Kiev, where Nazis shot more than 100, 000 Jews in 1941-1944, became one of the terrible symbols of the Holocaust. AFP PHOTO/ SERGEI SUPINSKY (Photo credit should read SERGEI SUPINSKY/AFP/Getty Images)

• "The truth is that a lot of these moments that seem period and horrible for women come directly from experiences that I and the other women writers have had in our lifetimes," says writer Robin Veith. • A recent study of 1,000 low-income families found that one in four children between the ages of 11-16 are sexually active. The average age at which these teens and preteens lost their virginity was 12.77. Researchers also found that boys reported their first sexual experience at younger ages (average: 12.48) than girls (13.16). • Research from the University of Washington indicates that US-born Asian American women are at a higher risk for both contemplating and attempting suicide. 15.3% of Asian American women have admitted to thinking about suicide, compared with the national estimate of 13.5%. • Here is some totally obvious information: White men have an easier time finding jobs than women or minorities. A new study reports that white males receive more job leads for managerial positions, but black men and women get more leads for positions that would not require them to supervise any other workers. • President Obama is drawing criticism from gay rights groups for his failure to overturn a Clinton-era law that gives states the right to refuse to recognize marriages performed in other states. "It is not enough to disavow this discriminatory law, and then wait for Congress or the courts to act," said the president of the Human Rights Campaign. • Researchers have found that increased sexual activity can lead to increased productivity in the workplace. Apparently, sex can improve problem-solving skills and creativity. • A new book, Das KZ Bordell, details the horrible reality of life in concentration camp brothels. The Nazis suspected that their prisoners would work harder if they were given an incentive, so they enlisted women from the camps to work as prostitutes, which were segregated according to race and closely monitored (read: peepholes) by SS officials. • Get a load of this: "Morning chicness" barf bags. Because if you have a vagina, even your vomit has to be pretty. • A study of women's magazines found that more than a third of the mags examined depicted babies sleeping in unsafe positions. • An attorney for the Marriott hotel in Stamford has said he is not responsible for the victim blaming defense that the hotel is not responsible for a woman who was raped in their parking garage. He says the insurance company has been handling the whole thing, and that he asked for the defense to be withdrawn weeks ago. •

• Though Kate Gosselin filed for divorce from Jon on Monday, the filing does not contain custody information at this time. Will Kate ask for primary custody? How much time will Jon get? [Star Magazine]

• By the by, those Crooked Houses Jon & Kate's 8 play in? $7,000 a piece. [ABC News]
• Kate Gosselin is on People magazine, with the cover line: "It feels like I failed." [People]
• New Jon & Kate episodes will include Jon's new girlfriend, 23-year-old Deanna Hummel. [Gatecrasher]
• "Reports this week claim Aniston has been sent text messages by Angelina Jolie demanding she 'back off'." Heh. Hahhaha. Ha. [Daily Mail]
• Is Britney Spears going to be in a Nazi movie? Brain… cannot… compute. [National Ledger]
• Rihanna didn't take the stand in Chris Brown's court case, so now Cover Girl has resumed its ad campaign featuring the singer. It's okay to think she's pretty again! [TMZ]
• Perez Hilton has released a new statement in which he says: "Words can hurt." And: "I wish none of it had happened. I can't take it back." And: "Who I am as a person and what I do for a living are two separate things." And: "Several television and radio shows over the past couple of days echoed the sentiment 'He had it coming'. Would they have said the same thing if I was a woman? Would I have 'deserved it' if I had been stabbed? Or shot? Or killed?" [Perez]
• Anne Hathaway loans her friends designer dresses out of her closet. [Gatecrasher]
• If you work for Oprah, you're going on a trip! She is taking 100 employees - and their families - on an all-expenses paid 10-day cruise around the Mediterranean. JEALOUS. [Gatecrasher via Pop Crunch]
• "Madonna is trying to recreate her beloved Wiltshire manor in the middle of Manhattan." [The Sun]
• "Fitness fanatic Madonna has banned smoking roadies from coming within 50ft of her…" [The Sun]
• Video of Zachary Quinto walking his dog with a friend who is dressed as a giant steak. Quinto falls, curses. The walking resumes. Inexplicable. [ONTD]
• LOL: Ellen's variety show will be called Bigger Longer & Wider. It debuts on TBS this Saturday at 9pm, with Kanye West, David Blaine and Nick Cannon among the performers. [USA Today]
• More drama involving Danielle Staub from the Real Housewives of New Jersey: The Smoking Gun has discovered that in 1986, she was charged with eight felonies, including extortion, cocaine possession, and narcotics conspiracy. And you know how Staub told People she was "never a prostitute. Never"? She told a federal agent she worked for an escort service. [MSNBC, The Smoking Gun]
• Great Q&A with Teresa from RHONJ at the link; she's asked if there's a little too much onyx and granite in her house abd says: "No, I don't think you can ever have too much. I coulda had more." [Newsweek]
• And! When asked, "On a scale of 1 to 10 how much does Danielle annoy you?" Teresa answers: "20." [Newsweek]
• The stuff dreams are made of: James Franco reading Proust. [Page Six]
• Were Megan Fox and Josh Brolin involved in a New Orleans fire? [Page Six]
• Nick Lachey and Vanessa Minnillo: Over. But those hot tub pix live forever! [People]
• Liev Schreiber plays a cross-dresser in Ang Lee's film Taking Woodstock and says: "[Ang] really did like my legs. When I went to his office, the first thing he said to me was, 'Wow, you have really nice legs.' I thought, 'This part is mine.'" [NY Mag]
• Pardon my groan: The Jonas Brothers are on the cover of Rolling Stone (again) looking like they bought fake IDs and are headed to the local leather bar to watch some bear on cub wrestling. [JustJared]
• "Martina Navratilova sued for millions by 'wife' after being 'dumped without warning.'" [Daily Mail]
• Katherine Heigl will star in a romance flick called Life As We Know It, which she is producing with her mother. [Variety]
• Daniel Craig will star in Dream House, a psychological thriller about a man who moves his family to a small town only to find it haunted by the former inhabitants who were murdered there. [The Hollywood Reporter]
• Craig Robinson, Heather Graham, Johnny Knoxville and Camilla Belle will join Kevin Spacey in the comedy Father Of Invention, which Spacey is producing. [The Hollywood Reporter]
• Julianne Hough probably won't be in Footloose, as her acting is abominable. [Page Six]
• Audrina Patridge of The Hills is getting her own reality show, creatively titled The Audrina Show. [EW]
• Epic Marilyn Manson interview! He talks about how he felt when he and Evan Rachel Wood broke up: "My walls were covered in scrawlings of the lyrics and cocaine bags nailed to the wall. And I did have an experience where I was struggling to deal with being alone and being forsaken and being betrayed by putting your trust in one person, and making the mistake of that being the wrong person. And that's a mistake that everyone can relate to. I made the mistake of trying to, desperately, grasp on and save that and own it. And every time I called her that day  I called 158 times  I took a razorblade and I cut myself on my face or on my hands." [Spin]
• Marilyn Manson also says of Evan Rachel Wood: "I have fantasies every day about smashing her skull in with a sledgehammer." [Spin]
• John Travolta is in South Africa, as a way to honor his late son who loved safaris. [TMZ]
• Is R. Kelly involved in a scam that robbed the elderly of £1million? [The Sun]
• Bollywood actress Aishwarya Rai is involved with some kind of illegal purchase of land, uh-oh. [Times of India]
• Michael Madsen owes Pierce Brosnan and Quentin Tarantino money. Not ten bucks  like $25,000 to Brosnan and $1 million to QT. [TMZ]
• "Rachel Hunter devastated as ice hockey player fiancé calls off wedding SEVEN WEEKS before big day." [Daily Mail]
• Come on baby shake your pigskin: Gloria Estefan and her husband Emilio are buying a share in the NFL's Miami Dolphins. [UPI]
• Joan Rivers is moving to L.A. and selling her Upper East side condo and Connecticut cottage, which is "so filled to the brim with campy knickknackery that it almost looks découpaged" and where Joan keeps a photograph of herself next to the bed. [NY Mag]
• Phil Spector is now in the "sensitive needs" area of California state prison, which is separate from the "gen pop." [USA Today]
• Blind item! "Which TV star will absolutely scream when she discovers her husband was chasing girls at an L.A. nightclub over the weekend?" [Gatecrasher]
• Q. Was it fun flipping the table? A: "Fun? It was heat of the moment and it was something that came spontaneously. That was my anger coming out. I just had enough of her. I was just done. I've never done it before. Will I ever do it again? I don't think so because I don't think I'll let someone get to me like she does because in real life I probably would have stopped hanging out with her."  Teresa, of The Real Housewives Of New Jersey. [Newsweek]
• "I'd be a liar if I said it was easy. I think it's very different nowadays for working mothers. Before, a woman could take two years off - a year for her pregnancy and then the first year, but I don't think that's possible for women in showbusiness or in any industry any more. You just have to keep going - keep looking forward. If you stop, you're like, 'Oh God, it's too overwhelming.' And believe me, I've had my fair share of those moments."  Anna Friel. [Telegraph]
• "I really cannot tell you if there will ever be another Batman movie. Chris [Nolan, director] has obviously done an incredible job with it. He's devoted to the movie that he's on right now. I'm none the wiser about we'll ever be revisiting Gotham or not."  Christian Bale. Of another Terminator movie he says: "No conversation has been had about that at all." [Pop Wrap]
• "That song is about when someone said to me, 'Okay, I want to be with you until I die.' And then they gave up. I was at the point in my life where I was like, 'Okay, let's die, but I tell you what, I'm going to kill you first, because I don't trust you.' Honestly. It's hard to look back and see myself as the same person. I'm very objective now. I started to apply this really fantastic rule that they don't teach you in AA or AAA, or any other acronym: Do drugs and drink when you're happy, not when you're sad. It has a great effect. But I can't say that I did that the whole time."  Marilyn Manson, still talking about Evan Rachel Wood. [Spin]
• "She's a lot shorter than I thought she would be, but I was pleased by that. I'm happy there was a flaw. Having said that, I think Angelina is pretty talented. And a remarkable human being, and a great mom. She's definitely not like any other lady I know."  Six foot three Liev Schreiber, on his five foot eight Salt costar Angelina Jolie. [Gatecrasher]
• "I did teach Abby how to say the f-word. I taught her how to drop the f-bomb in every way possible. I said, 'You're a child in an adult's world. I can't be a child for you. When she didn't swear, I said, 'You're starting to offend me Abby. If you don't start swearing every three words then I will fine you.'"  Cameron Diaz, 36 on working with Abigail Breslin, 13 in My Sister's Keeper. [Mirror]
• "I am so often puzzled [by journalists]. Sometimes they go, 'So what's this all about? ... What do you look like when you go home? Do you dress like this all the time?' It's rude! It's not nice… [Lady Gaga] is who I am. Me and my hair bow, we go to bed together. She sleeps where I sleep."  Lady GaGa. [Yahoo News via AP]

["Ljubelj South", Slovenia; June 5. Image via Getty]

A woman explores on June 5, 2009 the chamber of former World War II nazi concentration camp 'Ljubelj south' where the names of all nazi concentration camps were engraved, some 100 kilometers from Ljubljana. Slovenian President Danilo Turk and his Austrian counterpart Heinz Fischer visited the tunnel and the entrance to the 'Ljubelj south' World War II nazi concentration camp at Slovenian side of the border with Austria. Between March 1943 to May 1945 Ljubelj south in Slovenia and Ljubelj north in Austria were a branch of notorious WWII Mauthausen nazi concentration camps, from which thousands of political internees, the majority of whom were French, were transported to Ljubelj from there. AFP PHOTO/ HRVOJE POLAN (Photo credit should read HRVOJE POLAN/AFP/Getty Images)

[Washington, D.C., April 21. Image via Getty]

A woman lights a candle under the names of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi concentration camp as people read the names of Jewish Holocaust victims at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington on April 21, 2009 to mark Holocaust Remembrance Day, which falls on the anniversary of the Warsaw ghetto uprising in 1943. Some six million Jews were killed by Nazi Germany during WWII. AFP PHOTO/Nicholas KAMM (Photo credit should read NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images)

Although she saved almost twice as many people from the atrocities of the Holocaust as Oskar Schindler, - no slouch in the heroism department himself - Irena Sendler was until recently completely unknown. As a social worker in Poland, Sendler smuggled 2,500 Jewish children out of the Warsaw ghetto, and although she was tortured for three months - with Gestapo officers crushing her legs in a vice and smashing her bones with hammers - she refused to divulge their whereabouts. Having buried their names in jars, after the war Sendler used the information to help the children track down surviving relatives.

Under Communism, Sendler was persecuted and imprisoned for her affiliation with the "capitalist and bourgeois" exile government, and even with the anti-Nazi resistance groups, who were regarded as reactionary; later, as a result, her children were denied the right to study at Polish universities. In 1965, she was recognized by Israel as Righteous Among the Nations, but Sendler's story did not come to larger attention until 1999, when three Kansas ninth-graders, began researching her for a history project. Although Sendler remained modest until her death last year- giving much credit for her heroism to her compatriots in Zegota, the Polish Council to Aid the Jews - she was honored by the Pope in 2003, granted Order of the White Eagle, Poland's highest civilian decoration, and in 2007 inspired a movement to award the 97-year-old the Nobel Prize (it went to Al Gore.)

This Sunday, CBS will premiere The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler, starring Anna Paquin. While we can't help feeling such a woman deserves a feature film, we're eager to see it. Here's Paquin talking about the role on the Tavis Smiley Show on Wednesday:



'Irena Sendler': A Heroine for the Ages [Washington Post]

The Courageous Heart Of Irena Sendler [Variety]
Nobel Prize Is Sought for Polish Heroine [NY Sun]

• Millard Fuller, the co-founder of Habitat for Humanity, died Tuesday at the age of 74. • A new "Digital Mom" report has found that young moms (under the age of 35) use the internet much more frequently than mothers over the age of 45. • Newsday reports that there has been a recent spike the number of female robbers. Justice professor Robert McCrie calls bank robbery an "equal opportunity crime" because it "doesn't require a lot of muscle." • Dr. Karen Maples, leader of the team of doctors that delivered the Bellflower octuplets, was on Larry King Live last night to discuss mother Nadya Suleman, who she called an "amazing patient." • Thousands of men in India are supplementing their incomes by working as prostitutes, according to a new report. The men meet new clients primarily through social networking websites. • Three women and one man abducted a waiter from his place of work, held him hostage for four days, and repeatedly raped him. According to the police, the women believed to be involved in the assault "belonged to rich families of Karachi’s Clifton area." • A new book to be released this week in Germany claims to reveal the shocking truth about Nazi women. Propaganda of the time painted German women as the "fairer sex," but the book shows that the female Nazis were every bit as brutal as their male counterparts. • Archeologists have found traces of chocolate on ancient jars located north of the U.S.-Mexico border. This is the earliest evidence of chocolate being consumed- or used in religious rituals- in America. • Edgar Degas' famous bronze sculpture, "Petite danseuse de quatorze ans," (or "14-year-old dancer") is expected to sell for at least $12 million when it goes to auction in London. • According to a new report, boys may have greater psychological well-being than girls due to a better physical self-concept. Self-concept is defined as the "totality of perceptions each person has of themselves." •

Campbell, who gave the interview in violation of a gag order, said that on Monday he and his wife visited their children for the first time since they were taken and were shocked by the condition they were in. He claims the baby's diaper was leaking and his daughter's hair was in knots. The couple gained national notoriety when a supermarket refused to write their son Adolf Hitler Campbell's name on his birthday cake and it was discovered their other children are named JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell and Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie Campbell. The kids were removed from their home by the state over unspecified "safety concerns," but the Campbells say there was no neglect and they were only removed because of their names. [Gothamist]

Hello dear Ladies and Gentlemen! I would like inform you that Scarlett Johansson (actress) actually is a clone from original person Scarlett G-- last name, who has nothing with acting career. That clone was created illegally by using stolen biological material. Original person is very nice (not d**n sexy),most important - CHRISTIAN young lady! I'll tell you more,those clones (it's not only one) made in GERMANY - world leader manufacturer of humans clones, it is in Ludwigshafen am Rhein, Rhineland-Palatinate, Mr. Helmut K- home town. You can not even imaging the scale of the cloning activity. But warning! Helmut K- clone staff strictly controlling all their clones (at least they trying) spreading around the world, they are very accurate with that, some of them are still NAZI type disciplined and mind controlled clones, so be careful get close with clones you will be controlled as well. Original person is not happy with those movies, images, video, rumors and etc. spreading on media in that way it would be really nice if we all will try slow down that ''actress'' career development, original Scarlett will really appreciated that. Please remember that original Scarlett's family did not authorize any activity with stolen biological materials, no matter what form it was created in it was stolen and it is stolen. It all need to be delivered to authorized personals control in Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Original Scarlett never was engaged, by the way!

Her close friend S- G.

P.S.
CONTROLLING ACTIVITY OF ANY CLONES IS US MILITARY OPERATION. H.R. 534, the Human Cloning Prohibition Act of 2003, was introduced to the U.S. House of Representatives on February 5, 2003. After discussion, it was passed on February 27 by a vote of 241-155. It now moves on to the Senate for consideration. This bill makes it unlawful for any person or entity to perform or participate in human cloning, or to ship or receive embryos produced by human cloning. The penalties are imprisonment of up to 10 years and fines of $1 million or more. These now join other nations as diverse as Norway, Australia, and Germany, which had already added cloning for any purpose to their criminal code. And in Germany where it carries a penalty of five years imprisonment they know a thing or two about unethical science.

Welcome to 'Fine Lines', the Friday feature in which we give a sentimental, sometimes-critical, far more wrinkled look at the children's and YA books we loved in our youth. This week, writer / reviewer / blogger Lizzie Skurnick rereads 'Starring Sally J. Freedman As Herself', Judy Blume's 1977 story of Sally Freedman, who, following WWII, spends a year in Miami and triumphs over Hitler and Man O' Wars.

"Such big eyes!" Ma Fanny said, laughing. "You still have half a sandwich left."

Okay, everyone, quick poll: raise your hand if, after V-Day, you want your brother to get sick with nephritis so your dentist father can send you, your mom and your bubeh from NJ down to Miami for the winter to help him get better and you can go to school in a trailer and bike around being afraid that your neighbor, Mr. Zavosky, is Hitler, while you get your braid tugged by a boy you only later figure out you like and your grandmother calls you "mumeshana" and you dream of your dead cousins, Lila and Tante Rose, killed in the Holocaust, and you drink cocoa with whiskey because you're trying to make the creme de cacao your Mom drank in Cuba, and then you get stung by a Man O' War and complimented by said brother on being braver than he thought and catch Virus X and eat two bowls of chicken with rice soup, then try on some toe shoes.

For those who didn't do last week's assigned reading (or, you know, read the preceding paragraph), Blume's wondrous near-autobiography is the story of one Sally J. Freedman, whose father (dubbed neither my mistaken last week's "Dodo-bird" nor "Dooey-bird" but in fact "Doey-bird") moves the rest of the family from N.J. to Miami after the end of the war for one year when Douglas, the older son, needs to recover from a bout of nephritis. Thus ensconced in the Sun Belt with her mother and Ma Fanny, Sally embarks on a series of adventures that only another girl could understand are true adventures, including getting nits, having a friend fall on a bike, getting stung by a man o' war, washing diamonds with a hotsie-totsie in the Ladies Room, having her neighbor get knocked up by a goy, and discovering her neighbor is Hitler.

You might note from one of those that Sally is also given to vast flights of fancy, which, given the times, wend to spy missions in Europe and captures of Hitler  who has, in fact, killed her cousin Lila and Tante Rose, her grandmother's sister, both gassed in Auschwitz. Sally's triumphant narrative:

Sally F. Meets Adolf H

It is during the war and Sally is caught by Hitler in a round-up of Jewish people in Union County, New Jersey...He orders the Gestapo to bring her to his private office. Tell me, you little swine, Hitler hisses at her. Tell me what you know and I'll cut off your hair.

...Sally shakes her head. I'll never tell you anything...never!

So Hitler goes to his desk and gets his knife and he slowly slashes each of her fingers. She watches as her blood drips onto his rug, covering the huge swastika in the middle.

Look what you've done, you Jew bastard, Hitler cries hysterically. You've ruined my rug!

Ha ha, Sally says. Ha ha ha on you, Adolf....And then she passes out.

When she comes to, Hitler is asleep and snoring with his head down on the desk. Sally crawls out of his office, then dashes down the hall to the secret passageway of the underground. She gives them valuable information leading to the capture of Adolf Hitler and the end of the war.

It seems impossible to write about Starring Sally J. using a straightforward plot synopsis, because, like some glorious dish of kreplach, its mighty stuffing of detail exists in a symbiotic relationship with the soup of the plot. (As we have previously covered, frontiers, English manor homes, and the 40s somehow lend themselves unswervingly to that old detail porn, a fact for which PBS must be very, very grateful.) Instead, you hear about curtains being run up on sewing machines and you can't help but be transported right into Sally's apartment, with its Murphy bed and courtyard fountain with goldfish, and in the kitchen you sit, being spoken to by Ma Fanny entirely in Yiddish, reverse-syntax English and ellipses. There's your grade-school teacher Miss Swetnick over there, with her heart-shaped glasses and chipped tooth, and there's your Sunday at Herschel's, with just a little cherry juice on top. That's the ring on your four-party phone (one long ring, followed by two short), and there you are in the grade school bathroom pulling down your Esther Williams-esque coronet to make Margaret O'Brien braids and stuffing your white socks into the garbage to look more like the girls in Florida and not the ones in NJ. (And hoping God will forgive you this one time when the starving children in Europe could probably  right?  use those white socks.)

But I wonder if another reason we swoon for Sally J. is that, as readers, we were very much at the same level of detail comprehension  not only in our real-world lives, but in our reading of the book itself. After all, not only did I also have no idea what an "addition" or "Creme de Cacao" was (though I too tried to approximate it with Hershey's and whiskey) I also was ignorant of so many of the ready references of Sally J.'s world that she understood perfectly well: Jolly Rodger, dog tags, "Swells", Esther Williams, Margaret O'Brien, open-sided pinafores, Admiral Halsey. (To be perfectly honest, I still have no idea who Admiral Halsey is.) Any goyim must have been even more ferblondzet!

Pre-Wikipedia, I of course only realized who Esther Williams was years later, and some of the scenes  like that Ma Fanny borrowed Sally's English book to practice English and THAT'S why it was in the pantry  I just realized now (I am slow). But even as an eight-year-old, I understood that Sally realizing Peter Hornstein liked her, or that she was more adventurous than her mother, was a great leap forward for my beloved character. And though, at age 8, I may not have known yet who Eva Braun was, or where Union Woods could be found, I knew when Sally made peace with the fact that, probably, Hitler was not running amok in them, I too could set aside this childish dream.

Still longing for a finished basement, though!

• • • • • •

Now, for this week's Plotfinder winner: Congratulations, one Gillian B., who slid in with the correct answer, O.T. Nelson's The Girl Who Owned a City, pretty much *as* the post was posted. (Do you know, I've actually never read that one? Whateverhave you read The War Between the Pitiful Teachers and the Splendid Kids? That's what I thought!) Congratulations, Gillianwrite me at jezziefinelines@gmail.com to claim your column, any column.

This week's Plotfinder comes from reader Allison, who sent me a great many Plotfinders, all of which we will get to eventually:

Theres also one about a little girl, and a little girl witch lives in the abandoned house next door. She flies her broom into the bushes I think, and climbs into the window. She eventually turns herself into a turtle, and goes to school with the non-witch girl. The turtle-witch girl sneaks off, into another classroom with younger kids, and ends up in the cafeteria eating out of a big jar of strawberry jam.

Is it just me or do the Plotfinders increasingly resemble head trips? In any case: Send your answers, as always, to jezziefinelines@gmail.com, or post below in the comments. First correct answer gets their favorite pick in an upcoming Fine Lines.

And, finally. I have heard around the way that some Jezestrelles would like to know the books ahead of time. Oy! All right. I'm also finally cracking to reader pressureWITH the provisional caveat that I may change my mind periodically or, you know, forget. I mean, I'm the person that has a shopping bag with things to return to Target that I forget EVERY TIME I GO TO TARGET, even when I'm going there to return them.

With that, next week's book will be The Girl With the Silver Eyes, followed by Plotfinder winner Sarah R.'s request: Norma Klein's Love is One of the Choices, followed by some TBR blockbusters in June. Happy Half.com! (And by the way, if you NEVER read Klein, I recommend going whole hog on whatever is there, especially Sunshine.)

As always, write me at jezziefinelines@gmail.com with your demands, observations, remonstrations, and Man O' War remembrances.

Starring Sally J. Freedman As Herself [Amazon]
Lizzie Skurnick [The Old Hag]

Earlier: Summer Of My German Soldier: Springtime For Hitler, Part I
•From The Mixed-Up Files Of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler: City Of Angels
•A Gift Of Magic: Totally Psyched
•Are You There Crazy Psychic Muse? It's Me, Lois Duncan
•The Secret Garden: Still No Idea What A Missel Thrush Is
•To All My Fans, With Love, From Sylvie: No Telephone To Child Services
•The Westing Game: Partners In Crime
• The Moon By Night: Travels With Vicky
•My Sweet Audrina: The Book Of Sister And Forgetting
•The Long Secret: CSI: Puberty
•The Cat Ate My Gymsuit: A Pocket Full Of Orange Pits
•The Witch Of Blackbird Pond: Colonies, Slit Sleeves And Stocks, Oh My!
•Are You In The House Alone? One Out Of Four, Maybe More
•Jacob Have I Loved: Oh, Who Am I Kidding, I Reread This Book Once A Week
• Then Again, Maybe I Won't: Close Your Eyes, And Think Of Jersey City
•My Darling, My Hamburger: I Will Gladly Pay You Tomorrow For A D&C Today
•All-Of-A-Kind Family: Where I Would Put Something Yiddish If I Thought You Goyishe Farshtinkiners Would Farshteyn
•Island Of The Blue Dolphins: I'm A Cormorant And I Don't Care
•Little House In The Big Woods: I Play With A Pig Bladder Like It's A Balloon
•The Grounding Of Group Six: Have Fun At School, Kids, And Don't Forget To Die

Welcome to 'Fine Lines', the Friday feature in which we give a sentimental, sometimes-critical, far more wrinkled look at the children's and YA books we loved in our youth. This week, writer / reviewer / blogger Lizzie Skurnick rereads 'Summer of My German Soldier', Bette Greene's 1973 book about Patty Bergen, who fears her father more than an escaped Nazi.

What can we say about a Jewish dad who beats the hell out of his daughter? It is not, to say the least, the common literary conception of "Jewish Dad" found in most old-school YA, where, when Tate is in evidence at all, he is generally a hardworking sort stamping down rags and letting his children choose books from his store, or a kindly dentist dubbed "Dodo bird" by his adoring daughter. (Do your reading for next week, ladies!) In fact, excepting stepfathers, genuinely beastly fathers are rare in YA: while they run the gamut from switching their daughters to make a point (oh, Pa!) to calling them fat and useless, I can't think of any other instance where one whips off his belt to beat his daughter by the side of the road...before he even knows she's sheltering a Nazi.

But then again, a Jewish girl who shelters a Nazi during WWII is not your standard fare, either. Patty Bergen, Jewish daughter of the South, is the actual daughter of Harry and Pearl Bergen, who own Bergen's Department Store in Jenkinsville, Arkansas, as well as the older sister of Sharon, who, though far younger, in generally agreed to be the more beautiful and well-mannered sister. It is not enough that, as a member of the only Jewish family in town in the 1940s, Patty is already barely tolerated among her Baptist peers. (Being the kind of precocious word-lover that reads the dictionary for fun doesn't help either.) But showering adoration on Sharon, Patty's parents in turn treat her with the sort of generic cruelty reserved for other people's (annoying) childrenher father with tempestuous irritation: "Are you questioning me? Are you contradicting me?"and her mother with an endless stream of politely pointed barbs meant to establish just how hideously unworthy to be her daughter Patty truly is:

"When I was a girl," said my mother, turning towards Mrs. Fields, "I used to drive my mother crazy with my clothes. If my dress wasn't new or if it had the slightest little wrinkle in it I'd cry and throw myself across the bed."

"You were just particular about how you looked," said Mrs. Fields.

"I wish Patricia would be more particular," Mother said with sudden force. "Would you just look at that hair?...Here. Go look in the mirror and do a good job. You know, Gussie, you'd expect two sisters to be something alike, but Patricia doesn't care how she looks while Sharon is just like me."

Didn't mother know I was still standing here?...I took in my reflection: "Oh, mirror mirror on the wall, who's the homeliest one of all?"

Mrs. Fields smiled her adult-to-child smile. "How are you enjoying your vacation? As much as my niece, Donna Ann?"

I wondered how I could honestly answer the question. First I'd have to decided how much I was enjoying the summer  not all that much  then find out exactly how much Donna Ann Rhodes was enjoying it before trying to make an accurate comparison. Mrs. Fields' smile began to fade. Maybe she just wanted me to say something pleasant. "Yes, ma'am," I answered.

"Hey, Ruth!" She looked up from her wash. "Ruth, know where I was? With the Germans going to the prison camp!"

She gave me her have-you-been-up-to-some-devilment look.

"I didn't do a single thing wrong!" I said...."This is still my week to be good and sweet. I haven't forgotten."

Her face opened wide enough to catch the sunshine. "I'm mighty pleased to hear it. 'Cause before this week is through, your mamma and daddy gonna recognize your natural sweetness and give you some back, and then you gonna return even more and"

"Maybe so," I interrupted her, and she went back to putting bed sheets through the wringer, understanding that I didn't want to talk about them anymore.

At his temple a vein was pulsating like a neon sign...He pointed a single quivering finger at me. "If you don't come here this instant I'll give you a beating you're never going to forget."

....Fingers crossed, I stepped through the opening in the hedge to stand soldier-straight before my father.

"Closer!"

One one foot advanced before a hand tore against my face, sending me into total blackness.

We never know exactly, but we do understand that it is partly her parents refusal to love Patty  to even recognize herthat puts her in the way of Anton Reiker, the POW who, like Ruth and her grandmother, finds much in Patty to respect and like. When Jenkinsville becomes the site for a POW camp housing German prisoners (this kind of thing apparently totally happened!) Patty, who is so open to the outside world she actually instinctively waves at the prisoners, is disappointed by the banal nature of the crew: "In the movies war criminals being hustled off to prison would be dramatic. But in real life it didn't seem all that important. Not really a big deal. My stomach growled, reminding me it must be nearing lunchtime."

When she meets Anton at her father's store (the prisoners, put to work picking cotton, are brought in to by straw hats), she is further confused by how different he is from what she has been led to expect:

...he was looking at me like he saw melike he liked what he saw.

"I'll take the one you choose," said Reiker. He placed six yellow pencils and three stenographic pads on the counter. "And you did not tell me," he said, "what you call these pocket pencil sharpeners."

"He was so nice. How could he have been one of thosethose brutal, black-booted Nazis? "Well, I don't think they actually call them much of anything, but if they were to call them by their right name they'd probably call them pocket pencil sharpeners."

Reiker laughed and for a moment, this moment, we were friends. And now I knew something more. He wasn't a bad man.

His mouth came open. "Jewish?" An index finger pointed towards me. "You're Jewish?"

I thought he knew. I guess I thought everybody knew....As I nodded Yes, my breathing came to a halt while my eyes clamped shut.

Suddenly, strong baritone laughter flooded the room...'It's truly extraordinary," he said. "Who would believe it? 'Jewish girl risks all for German soldier.' Tell me, Patty Bergen" his voice became soft, but with a trace of hoarseness"why are you doing this for me?"

It wasn't complicated. Why didn't he know? There was really only one word for it. A simple little word that in itself is reason enough.

"The reason I'm doing this for you," I started off, "is only that I wouldn't want anything bad to happen to you."

But in the end, this does not matter, Bette Green's work is stunning not only for it's tragic proportions, but for the revelation of the great complexities of love and cruelty, and how we find them in the strangest places. I cried about 900 times while rereading this book, but I cried the most in two instanceswhen Anton, seeing Patty's father beating her, comes running out of his hiding place to protect her, and then when Ruth, who sees Anton run out, accepts that, as horrible as it is, Patty's refusal to hate will always put her in harm's way:

"I want you to tell Ruth the truth about something. You hear me talking, girl?" I nodded Yes.

"You tell me who is that man."

..."The man is my friend," I said at last.

Ruth signed like she sometimes does before tackling a really big job. "He's not the one the law's after? Not the one from the prison camp?"

"Yes."

Her forehead crinkled up like a washboard. "You telling me, Yes, he's not the one?"

"No, Ruth, I'm telling you yes. Yes, he's the one."

Ruth's head moved back and forth in a No direction. "Oh, Lord, why you sending us more, Lord? Don't this child and me have burden enough?"

• • • •

Now, for the winner of this week's challenge: Congratulations, one Rhadika B., whose self-proclaimed "lame guess" was in fact the only correct one: Sooner or Later by Bruce and Carole Hart, the most passed-around flashlight bunk-book of my era.

Seriously, how weirdly pervy is this cover?


I want to add double well-played to Rhadika, since actually I totally forgot to add that the boyfriend was a musician, and actually the hair of the CHARACTER is red, but the hair on the cover really isn't all that red. Take this as a lesson: Never run yourself down! That is for other people who don't know what they're talking about. Rhadika, you've earned the right to demand a column of your choosing. Email me at jezziefinelines@gmail.com to claim your booty.

Shoutout also to Beth D., who answered a question I didn't even know was a question: For all of those who didn't know what I was talking about last week, the book about the kids solving a mystery involving St. John the Divine and a genie is Madeleine L'Engle's The Young Unicorns, a wonderful, wonderful work that marks the point where L'Engle begins to port Vicky Austin into wacko supernatural territory. Still, my favorite has always been Dragons in the Waters, which stars Polly O'Keefe (I am a Polly!), Meg's daughter, on a freighter, where they also get into all this mishegos involving the Quiztano Indians, who I think are also in a Swiftly Tilting Planet, along with all that Madoc Maddox stuff? Are they? Oy, maybe we should just do L'Engle for like six months and work this all out.

Now to this week's plotfinder, which is actually from reader Kelli S., who emailed me the following:

Here is what I remember....There, for some reason I don't remember why, aren't any adults left. The main character is this girl and her brothers and sisters who have to learn to live on there own. They learn to drive a car and they're always driving around looking for food. At one point thers is some bird in a cage. The bird is a big deal, I can't remember why. They are always worried about this gang of bad kids so they carry around baseball bats to defend themselves. The end up fighting the gang and being able to live in peace. There are some sexual overtones at points. It's very gritty. It's not like the Boxcar Children or anything. I remember the cover of the paperback version we had had this dark blue cover with a picture of a girl getting out of a car in the rain...It was all about survival.

If you know the answer, either stick in it the comments or email me at jezziefinelines@gmail.com. Send intemperate demands to same. First correct gets it, and I will announce the winner next week!

Fine Lines
Lizzie Skurnick [The Old Hag]
Summer Of My German Soldier [Amazon]

Earlier: From The Mixed-Up Files Of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler: City Of Angels
•A Gift Of Magic: Totally Psyched
•Are You There Crazy Psychic Muse? It's Me, Lois Duncan
•The Secret Garden: Still No Idea What A Missel Thrush Is
•To All My Fans, With Love, From Sylvie: No Telephone To Child Services
•The Westing Game: Partners In Crime
• The Moon By Night: Travels With Vicky
•My Sweet Audrina: The Book Of Sister And Forgetting
•The Long Secret: CSI: Puberty
•The Cat Ate My Gymsuit: A Pocket Full Of Orange Pits
•The Witch Of Blackbird Pond: Colonies, Slit Sleeves And Stocks, Oh My!
•Are You In The House Alone? One Out Of Four, Maybe More
•Jacob Have I Loved: Oh, Who Am I Kidding, I Reread This Book Once A Week
• Then Again, Maybe I Won't: Close Your Eyes, And Think Of Jersey City
•My Darling, My Hamburger: I Will Gladly Pay You Tomorrow For A D&C Today
•All-Of-A-Kind Family: Where I Would Put Something Yiddish If I Thought You Goyishe Farshtinkiners Would Farshteyn
•Island Of The Blue Dolphins: I'm A Cormorant And I Don't Care
•Little House In The Big Woods: I Play With A Pig Bladder Like It's A Balloon
•The Grounding Of Group Six: Have Fun At School, Kids, And Don't Forget To Die

• As celebrity-commodity tie-ups go, it makes a certain kind of sense that Ashlee Simpson would shill for Wet Seal. Wet Seal is sort of the quintessential hollow youth retailer, possessing nary the layers of rigorous protocol and manufactured snobbery of Abercrombie & Fitch nor the countercultural "heritage" of Urban Outfitters, and so it is left, every few years, to "reinvent" itself under the watchful eye of the money men. Ashlee will be "designing" T-shirts "inspired by her own personality, sense of style and album artwork." [People]
  
• Oh, goody, and they're even going to make one that fits her. [Budget Fashionista]
  
• You know? There are a lot of topics that I could see inspiring me to write 300 pages of text and Kate Moss is not one of them. I mean, what all is there to say about Kate Moss? WWD asked the host of the party for a Kate Moss biography in Paris last night. "She always looks great," he said. [WWD]
  
• And her life is endless string of nabbing and losing endorsement contracts. [Mirror]

• J.C. Penney and "macroeconomic gloom" seem somehow appropriately tied to one another. [WSJ]
• Walgreen's is starting to sell $7 pajamas, and other clothing items. This reminds me of a fun game: what is the grossest thing in your wardrobe that you bought at a drugstore when you were locked out of your house after an ill-advised one-night stand and somehow still own? And why are "briefs" SO VERY GIANT? I have some brown plastic CVS sandals but I think the GIANT underwear takes the cake. [Mediapost]
• Some dispatch from a Calvin Klein party in Vegas involved Kate Bosworth being credited with this profundity: "The biggest tip I learned was come with as much as you're willing to loose." No dear, "loose" is the sample size on your bony body. [Fashion Week Daily]
• If you didn't know the story of how Puma and Adidas were founded by dueling German brothers named Adi and Rudolf Dassler and how Adi outfitted Nazis etc. etc., well, now you can read an entire book about it! Not that I want to distract your mind from such lofty matters as those sure to be addressed in the Kate Moss book! [BusinessWeek]

• Model Coco Rocha on performing an Irish dance for kids in Harlem on Friday: "It wasn't a huge crowd, but these are kids who are interested in dance... I just don't want people to think I'm fake." Um, yeah, because your completely retarded scheme to teach city kids how to look stupid and white while dancing seemed so cannily slick and manufactured. [Fashion Week Daily]
  
• Krazy Karl Lagerfeld quote of the day! Regarding his Fendi collection just shown on the Great Wall of China: "I didn't want to make it a Madame Chiang Kai-shek collection so I did just one dress in a very sophisticated way to say hello to her." Um, so presumably he knows that this is sort of like if he had held the show at the Masada and said, "Hey, that jacket  that was my little shout-out to Ahmadinejad. I didn't want to do the whole show on the guy, just that little thing." [Fashion Week Daily]
  
• American Apparel does Halloween costumes. Because gold lame leggings and tie-dye unitards are everyday clothes for some people. [American Apparel]

• The Chanel bike we showed you yesterday? It has a crossbar! Which confirms what we've long suspected: Krazy Karl hates women. [Sassybella]
• L.A. Fashion week: Yeah, no one went. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Hermes is celebrating the re-opening of its Paris flagship with a party that will go on for 24 hours straight, because retail is sort of like the religion of modern society. [Vogue UK]
• The new-and-possibly-improved house of Halston is already gearing up for its debut at New York Fashion Week this February. Halston CEO Bonnie Takhar: "It's important that we focus on the past, but very important we bring it into the modern day." Worry not, Bonnie - you have Rachel Zoe as a creative adviser! You're practically guaranteed to be getting the same rehashed looks over and over again and be told that they're cutting edge! [Vogue UK]
• We take this opportunity to congratulate our fellow Tufts alum Coach President/Creative Director Reed Krakoff on Coach's 23% raise in income this past fiscal quarter. Go Jumbos! (Um, or jumbo bags or whatever.) [WSJ]
• Marc Jacobs is opening his fifth retail store within a 3-block radius in New York. [The Fashion Informer]

• NY Times fashion critic Cathy Horyn continues to stick up for homeboy Marc Jacobs on her blog, disclosing that he personally dressed all of the models in his much-delayed show and that "if you're always under pressure, I suppose you're going to be more sensitive to the things you absolutely can control." Aw, tear? [NY Times]
  
• The Dress Barn's profits rocketed an amazing 38% this quarter. Um, what? Developing... [WWD, sub req'd]
  
• Okay, we totally attended the wrong Fashion Week. Prince performed live at the Matthew Williamson show in London. [Vogue UK]
  
• Also at London fashion week: Courtney Love tripped Kate Moss, who went tumbling upon entering; someone spilled a drink on Anna Wintour; and Jade Jagger and Christian Louboutin were having "a private chat" (a private really ANIMATED and EXUBERANT chat, we're assuming) in the women's restroom. This is all at one party. [Vogue UK]

• Speaking of parties, the Christopher Kane afterparty was so good Agyness Deyn had to wait in line. [WWD, 2nd item]
• Things we did not know about Karl Lagerfeld that we learned just from reading a 300-word item about the forthcoming documentary about him: He has been sexually active since age 13, his family calls him "Shirley Temple," his bedroom looks just like mine, he talks trash about the former Chanel ("When I took on Chanel, it was a sleeping beauty. And not even a beautiful one. She snored'). [Vogue UK]
• Models/modelish types appearing in the Cavalli for H&M ads: Erin Wasson, Jessica Stam, Theodora Richards, Nicolas Malleville, Sean Lennon, Jane Schmitt, Lydia Hearst, Astrid Muñoz, Julia Restoin-Roitfeld, Anouck Lepère. [WWD, 1st item]
• Stella McCartney is adding a golf line to her Stella-for-Adidas label. Says McCartney, "I think it is about time that women who play golf can now echo what they wear in everyday life on the green." On our list of things it's about time for, this, uh, doesn't even make our pile of rejected ideas. [WWD, sub req'd]

If you want to be America's next top model, you have to be really patient. Really, really patient. At least this is what I conclude, since I am there for 5 hours and probably actively "auditioning" for all of, oh, maybe 10 minutes. The first phase of the waiting-game takes place outside, and if outside means New York City this past Saturday, that means blistering mid-90's heat. On the line, already hundreds deep, mothers abound; delusional, surely-psychotic mothers who have come to stand beside their daughters to go and scope out the size of the line for them, offer a make-up compact for an impromptu mascara touch-up, or to assure their little beauties that surely Tyra herself will be on hand to appreciate their greatness. The mothers are soon dispatched (no one besides potential contestants allowed inside!) but an overwhelming Holocaust-rooted paranoia takes hold of me: We told to walk silently with our arms at our sides as we enter the hotel, making sure we keep pace  "You aren't moving fast enough!" one Gestapo agent / CW network peon hisses  and we twist and turn through endless hallways, up and down flights of stairs, only to end up in a hallway outside a ballroom and handed numbered mailing labels we are told to keep on us at all times. I am 334.

We file into the ballroom, and settle into the rows according to our numbers. I look around me. Why does no one else seemed panic? Why is no one else listening carefully for the sounds of German shepherds? Why is that girl behind me eating... a Whopper and fries? Suddenly, I am pulled out of my horrific moment of revelry as I hear the piercing shrieks of one of the guards, calling my number, "334! 334! How many times do I have to call you, 334? You need to sign in on the sign-in sheet, 334! You are slowing everything down, 334!" (Surely I will be denied my ration of watery broth this evening.) I sign and examine the girls around me. To my immediate left is a plump 18-year old. She just graduated from high school, she blabs to no one in particular, thinks Lindsay Lohan is the best actress ever and is destined to become a big Broadway musical star. To my right is a bleached blonde who says she's 27, the oldest you can be to be on Top Model, but seems to be a little closer to 30 . She has makeup caked on, at least 6 inches thick and is short, which means, definitely under Top Model's 5'7" height requirement.

"No cell phones! No cameras! No contact at all with the outside world while you are in here! Do not talk to anyone about what you see or do here! If you speak to the press you are immediately OUT!" the 'guards' holler every 15 minutes or so. Finally, after several hours in the holding room, in which we are again berated about the significance of our numbers and asked to turn in the 15-page applications needed to attend auditions today and asked to complete an additional brief form in which we detail three emergency contacts and three adjectives that best describe our personalities, we are eventually led in groups of 100 out of the room. We are told to move silently, and move closely. Our toes should clip the heels of the person in front of us.

We are now in staff-only hallways. The lighting is dim. There is no air conditioning. (Sorta like a cattle car?) We run up 4 flights of stairs. I am relieved I am in flat shoes. And at last we are brought to our next holding area, a narrow and dank hall. We are not sure where we are or how long we will be there. Another hopeful contestant, about 10 girls behind me, starts telling anyone who will listen about what we have in store: This is her 4th time auditioning, you see. "You will walk into a room," she tells us. "You will line up  they will cram us in between 30 -150 at a time, depending on how behind schedule they are. We will say our names. And then they will call the numbers of the people who they want to stay. I have heard that if you make it past this, then you are brought to another room where you are asked to speak to Tyra."

After waiting in yet another hallway for 45 minutes, we finally enter a conference room with more people barking orders at us: "File in! Stand with your right shoulder against the wall! Make sure your feet are touching the feet of the person in front of you! Faster, ladies! Faster! And remember  you are NOT PERMITTED TO SPEAK." Behind a long table sits the casting director and her assistant. There is also some sort of other assistant, a young man whom I want to smack: He wears one of those not-so-ironic t-shirts that says, "You Looked Better On MySpace." Thoughtful, buddy.

The casting director tells us we will go around the room and when it is out turn we are to say our full name, our age, our height, and our weight to the camera. She asks us to take a moment to practice, as if we mess up  we are immediately out. "Jennifer Gerson, 23, 5'8", 118," I chant over and over again in my head, until it is at last my turn and I say it out loud. The moment the last girl finishes, the casting director informs us that she is going to call a series of numbers: Those ladies are to stay, and everyone else is to leave the room immediately. The room is silent. And then, shockingly, I hear it: 334! Once the losers have been cleared, I see that there are 8 of us from our group of 100 who remain. We are asked to line up in numeric order: It is time to be measured. One at at time we are led to a wall where an impromptu ruler has been constructed, with increments ranging from 5'8" to 6". We are told to shove our hair down to make sure an accurate reading is made on our height. Then we are told to stand shoulder-to-shoulder against the opposite wall. Two of the girls are unsure of what this means, and touch one another's shoulders with their hands. The casting director's assistant snarks, "Well, that's one way to interpret that direction." A camera man steps forth. We are told to offer up a blank face, a half smile, a full smile, and then stand in profile. And we are told to lift up our shirts, so they can see our "waists." This is problematic as I am the only one here in a dress. I do not expose myself. And after that, two of the girls from our group are asked to stay... and I am not one of them..

• Shamed and fired former Grey's Anatomy cast member/homophobe Isaiah Washington tells the media he is getting by post-ousting by staying focused on his "day-to-day" life. And somewhere in prison Paris Hilton gets to call "First World Problems" for the very first time in her life. [People.com]
  
• Former Enron Broadband CEO Ken Rice gets sentenced to 27 months. The funny thing is, Enron Broadband was barely even a real business but.. well, yeah. [CNN]
  
• Topless lady gets $29K for settling with New York City over her wrongful arrest for exercising the right to her own Britneyness. "I've always just felt that was something natural," she said. "I've kind of always done it out of practicality." [CNN]
  
• Following the deadliest insurgent attack of the Afghan war, a US air raid kills seven children. And yeah, Iraq still really really sucks. [NYT]
  
• Sayeth Rosie O'Donnell: "I've been hanging around with those heteros for a full year and it's not fun. Turn around one and they'll stab you in the back with a high heel. They will." [People.com]
  
• The age-old question of whether Democrats or Republicans are uglier is debated by the nation's best and brightest. [Wonkette]
  
• Michael Jackson settles a $48 million lawsuit brought against him by some guy Michael claims to "not remember." [USA Today]
  
• Seven U.S. casualties identified since Friday. [DoD]