FJasmineAdams

vedettente

cornellingus

OOoh, me me! I loved that book, I actually brought it up a few Fine Lines ago! Very disturbed though when I wiki'd it only to find out that it was basically a child's intro to Ayn Rand (whom I can't stand).

alliedee

Also: anyone read those William Sleator books? "Interstellar Pig" was the name I remember most, but there were others. Something about stairs.

scribbles

scribbles

I second the vote for "The Westing Game." I was obsessed with that book. Also, any Cynthia Voigt book, especially "Dicey's Song" or "Izzy Willy Nilly."

scribbles

MinnesotaStateofMind

@lolkate: Smething that has struck me having read The Mixed Up Files (whenever I blot my lips after applying lipstick I think of the female protagonist seeing her mother's discarded blotted tissues in the bathroom--don't ask me why), the Fudge books (Superfudge was my absolute favorite book until I found Pride and Prejudice), the works of Salinger and other city-based children's novels written between the 50's and 80's were how freaking independent the kids were. They lived in the city, they knew how to survive, they weren't stupid, and they were really cool--if I'm to be completely honest, that's what made me want to move to New York (also, my awesome godmother lived near the Met in the late 70's and somehow transferred her love of the city to me)--I wanted that life of independence and to be taught real life lessons instead of being sheltered away in the exurbs.

bellethellama

B&N has it....and it's the same cover I remember

[search.barnesandnoble.com]

laddibugg

[ap.google.com]

laddibugg

nonane

booktart

Jesus Christ I loved this book through years of my boyhood - perfectly conscious and uncaring that it was a girl's book. I still liked Johnny Tremain all right and all, but nothing moved me like IOTBD. I remember Zia kinda sucking though.

And, this being Jezebal, anyone else read Pardon Me You're Stepping on my Eyeball?

flavorflanks

jackie0512

sartastic

alannaofdoom

booktart

Or what about Forever? Squee! Judy Blume spoke at my old high school a couple of years ago, and did a book signing, but I was too embarrassed to take that one to get signed, because I was with my mom. (And I'm in my 30s.) (And all the dirty parts were dog-eared because we passed it around in band class in 7th grade.)

booktart

krazykarot

@sartastic: i think i read this, though i can't remember anything about it.

stringbeanjean

sartastic

thanksluckystars

radiored

mallie

AlisonAshleigh

@bluebirdred: Yes!

TruculentandUnreliable

Triphena

bluebirdred

and whoever mentioned Jacob Have I Loved.... plz.

elitza

ValerieM

What happened to books like this? :(

malabrigo

Anneth

nardo218

onestrawplz

EthelBromide

WantToTouchtheWahine

WantToTouchtheWahine

WantToTouchtheWahine

I read this book too, at my teacher's suggestion. Growing up in Mission country makes stories with Missions in the irresistible.

She was such superhero for little me, I loved this book. Thanks for bringing it back!

meaverly

miz_dj

Also, has anyone read The Girl Who Owned a City? It seems like Jezebels would enjoy it. About when everyone over the age of 12 dies and the kids need to fend for themselves? And an 11 year old becomes in charge? Awsome.

Cimorene

jenniferpixie

kentuckienne

Entonces is ironing your dumb ass

TruculentandUnreliable

choolie

MsBerry

Also, I went to college in Santa Barbara, and some friends and I went on a tour of the Mission for a lark one day. I didn't know that Karana was buried there, and when we came across it, NONE of them knew why I suddenly got all weepy. And they had grown up in the area!

MsBerry

syneblue

RosePetalPlace

Bohoinparadise

rosiered

Anyone? Although I have to admit that this is a book I love but can not get through the first chapter again.

happymisanthrope

Mego

Also- Bridge to Terabithia was the first book to ever make me cry, and Jacob Have I Loved was the second.

madamequeen will not let you sleep on the couch

spectatertot

Don't forget Zilpha Keatley Snyder, Lynne Reid Banks, Lucy M. Boston, or Andre Norton. They kick Disney's ass when it comes to "fairy" tales and magic.

Athaliah

I might have to go make one now, just for old times' sake. Thanks, Jezebel!

Cabiria

nardo218

Anyone read I Want to Go Home by Gordon Korman? Kid who hated camp, making trouble, etc. I passionately loved that book.

I read all the Nancy Drew Casefile books, but White Water Terror and the one with all the fires were my favorite.

The Oracle Doll? Supernatural story, possessed dolls, 19th century mystery, or something like that. I vividly remember the evil demon black snake slithering into the kids' little fort under the bushes. There was a really neat one that was similar, two modern kids move into a haunted house, and they switch places with the kids who died there in the 19th century. I liked the idea that the living were like ghosts to the dead.

I just saw All Night Long at the library, the Sweet Valley High rape book.

For you girls in college, Anne of the Island by LM Montgomery is the best college book eva. By the same author, I love The Blue Castle -- ignore the constipated heroine on the cover, the book is a protofeminist novel about leaving home, eschewing society's values, and doing whatever (and whomever) the fuck you want.

nardo218

I probably still have this somewhere around the house. Totally hunting it down to reread.

deuteragonist

What was the fictioon bok about a girl from Barbados who comes to Colonial America to stay with family, and her beauty and culturally-different ways cause those pesky settlers to think she is a witch? I loved her relationship with the outcast woman who was branded for being a with years earlier....Ooh! Oh! It's "The Witch of Blackbird Pond," by Elizabeth George Speare (Thanks Google!)

tralala

nattiebo

(I am still scarred by it.)

oudemia

Cam/ron

LilaFowler

bigleggedwoman

Inkymonkey

rosiered

ala.org/ala/alsc/awardsscholarships/literaryawds/newberymedal/newberywinners/medalwinners.htm

smitty

But Ellen Conford was seriously awesome too.

huffyb

Inkymonkey

smitty

AlmostZooey

lolkate

rosiered

Goddamn, we read some depressing-ass books when we were kids. Anyone for Summer of the Swans? I remember when my sister took her kids to see the movie version of Bridge to Terabithia she was kind of cackling over what a shocking depressing ass movie it was going to be and how her kids were going to be all fucked up about it.

They don't make books like this anymore, man.

Smackdown

rosiered

I'm a big HP fan, too. I think those books are amazingly complex and interesting, they definitely reward adult attention (as much as they are also totally appropriate for adolescents).

rosiered

She even numbers her sections, like they're parts of an argument that flies like an arrow from 1. to 2. to 3.

The Year of Magical Thinking seems, rather than studied, mostly just desperate. The constant cycling through of memories, the explicit adoption of theoretical constructs through which to process her grief ("Let me try science..."), the hesitant voice - it all seems like Didion doesn't know what she wants to really write. Does she want to just tell us endlessly about things she and John once did, and how that reminds her of another time, when... Or does she want to examine the grieving process systematically, analyze it, compile a bibliography for it, and make it comprehensible? Does she just want to go cry in bed for a while and recover the pieces of her life at her own leisure? There is a tremendous uncertainty to her voice. She seems to reverse her personality, her belief system, sometimes on a page-to-page basis.

This can be very emotionally affecting for a reader. I certainly cried at points, especially as Didion seemed to try so hard to remain dispassionate. I found it fascinating as an insight into how her mind works, because she pretty much shows you every approach she's tried to take, and how all of them have failed her (because of course the problem is fundamentally insurmountable. That's the tragedy of the book). She never finds what she is looking for, which tells me she didn't know what she was going to write before she drafted this book - a major departure for an author who is ordinarily so measured, and, I think, not a wise one. Didion normally doesn't use writing as an exercise, as a way of getting her feelings out. Magical Thinking dispels a forty-year-old authorial construct and shows us a Didion who isn't always in control, who doesn't always know which word to put where. As a reader this is both interesting - in a rubbernecking, peek behind the curtain kind of way - and dismaying.

I'm interested to hear your thoughts, though. A lot of people like this book a great deal.

rosiered

TinyK

ShansyPants

Taigan

islandcandy

In most of her nonfiction, I'd argue from Slouching through Political Fictions, the appeal of her voice depends on a kind of uncertainty - but then, just at the climax of the essay, you realize this has been a construct. Didion knew what she was doing all along, knew what she would write before she picked up the pen, and now, Didion is going to tell you exactly what's going on. The confusion, the sense of endearing befuddlement and being out of her depth was a clever act to make a reader, unfamiliar with the issues of the essay, feel drawn in by attachment to a voice that seems equally naïve. Most of The White Album functions like this. Even "The White Album" itself, I think, works on this principle - even at almost a complete loss, dealing with a mental breakdown and troubled times, Didion is completely lucid. She even numbers her sections, like they're parts of an argument

rosiered

greygreygrey

petuniacat

Miss Pelled

Grown-up books ("Little Children), 'kids' books (I was genuinely moved when I read the first Harry Potter...11 year old boy and the mirror that offered him what he what--his parents!)....such a relief to have when the narratives of the real world are so much shittier, and much, much more dissatisfying/painful.

marie123

Grr I can't remember the title either, maybe it'll come to me.

nardo218

Knucklehead Babylon

Blast Farmer Boy! I've been trying to reread the Little House series,and I'm stalled on this one. The books are stacked in a little alter on my bookshelf, and Farmer Boy has a "Is Severus Snape evil?" bookmark in the middle, the promotional items given out for HP book seven.

nardo218

Please do Witch of Blackbird Pond.

picardia

Speaking of which, the next feature should be on The Giver!

Red Parchment

adminslave

WendyKroy

SBJ

Moloko

amoureuse is hiding under a rock till Election Day

NoInheritance

lolkate

And when my class went to visit the big scary middle school to see what we'd be facing the next yer, the class I sat in on was writing letters to authors and I totally picked Scott O'Dell.

mcginstein

Beautiful book. Lost my copy of it like a fool.

marie123

TurtleWexlerKicksAss

I loved that book. I wanted to wear the jewelry and feathers and scamper around on rocks all day.

petuniacat

LAkeywhore

Noah D

FYI the Aleuts refers to people from the Aleutian Islands, which is the very long chain of islands in Alaska that arc towards Russia. Naturally they are seafaring people. The Russia colonial period was brutal for these folks and other North Pacific peoples. Whole villages were wiped out. Here is a brief history: [www.hlswilliwaw.com]

raoul j raoul

Miss Pelled

Oh the memories!

thatonegirlsays

rosiered

TruculentandUnreliable

Clare

TruculentandUnreliable

It has a couple chapters that take place in the home of an Italian family who take him in and pay him to do odd jobs. The daughter in the family teaches the protagonist how to smile (because he hasn't ever experienced joy before, except, he remembers, as a baby when his mother was alive). And there's another part where someone buys him an ice cream cone, and he eats half of it, and puts the rest away in his pocket for later (which teaches him about how some foods melt -- and also that sometimes it's not worth it to save things till later when we could enjoy them presently).

Did anyone else read this book? It's driving me crazy.

rosiered

lolkate

CMADDIE

gosh, no wonder i grew up to be an writing & literature major.

titania1285

Gobragh

Island of the Blue Dolphins was one of my true favourites, because I'd save it till last or second-last each time around, finishing it around the time my family would be getting and decorating the tree. I adored how take-charge Karana is, how capable and smart and beautiful. I played games with my little brother pretending we were trapped on an island in our garden (only sometimes I let my brother live past the first chapter).

Reading these posts is just wonderful.

rosiered

J.D.Regent

lolkate

TruculentandUnreliable

At least that's how the Alaska natives say it.

crankybureaucrat

TruculentandUnreliable

Ironic--alot of the books I read as a kid ("Jacob" I loved right away) are those I only appreciated later in life (like "Number the Stars").

Is it only books with female heroines? What about "The Phantom Tollbooth" (little boy protagonist is universally sympathetic and his mission is to rescue Rhyme and Reason--girls, natch--who were sent away by two princes in a pissing contest. Good stuff).

marie123

I also loved this book. I wanted to name our new dog Rontu after reading it but I was vetoed by the rest of the family.

Oh, and the Bull she talks about is an Elephant Seal. I remember when we read this in school and my teacher had to explain that part.

My other favorite "kid left on their own to survive" book was "Hatchet." Great book.

lumenatrix

I been trying to get her to read Island of the "Blue Dolphins", she's not interested yet. This is the exact cover I had, not the one they have now in the bookstores tho. This along with "Little House in the Big Woods" (which I read to both of my girls) are huge all time favorites of mine, you guys have just been hitting all my childhood reading highs.

I vote for Ronia the Robber's Daughter next, the first lovestory I ever read.

buckety

jupiterspaw

Chryss

lolkate

lucyjae

CMADDIE

lucyjae

Never was a huge "Island of the Blue Dolphins" fan, though.

Anyone else ever read the Blue Moose books as a kid? I don't remember much about them, except that they were surreal, and had cool cover art.

Miss Pelled

LadyNo Fondles Sweaters

DreamingInGreen

LaComtesse

lolkate

not.a.clever.name

katastic

CMADDIE

You know, I don't think I read novels nowadays with the same intensity I had as a kid. I still remember specific images and phrases from books I read when I was younger. I can barely remember what's happening in the book I'm currently reading.

Bollywhaaa

sanibelly

BuffyCoventry

And also, I've been dreaming about a trip to the Channel Islands (just of the Ventura County coast in SoCal) so that I can indulge in my Island of the Blue Dolphin childhood. I've already visited numerous missions where her daughter Zia was later imprisonned.

DreamingInGreen

The real Karana is burried at the Santa Barbara mission. When you take the mission tour they show a little video about her and there is a plaque in the cemetery as well.
I cried a little when I saw it because this was one of my faorite books growing up.
I'm a geek.

mknfuss

sovereign_state

hfree

and while we're making requests, can i put in a vote for "sarah, plain and tall?"

lolkate

janna

Aleut is actually a Russian word (no idea what it means, probably whatever they called the Aleutian Islands) back from before we took Alaska from them; it's pronounced a-lē-ˈüt.

J.D.Regent

hortense

TruculentandUnreliable

So, so good. I hope kids still read this now instead of gossip girl or whatever.

katieb: in charge of the war on the poor.

DorothyZbornak

Bollywhaaa

lolkate

JessicaLovejoy: Is voting for Kodos

edgyspice

ciaomanhattan

solaana

TruculentandUnreliable

jenndavo

FancyInk