SHELF DISCOVERY by LIZZIE SKURNICK
The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading: A Reading Memoir
(Also features contributions from Meg Cabot (The Princess Diaries), Laura Lippman (Tess Monaghan series), Cecily von Ziegesar (Gossip Girl), and Jennifer Weiner)
Lizzie Skurnick's SHELF DISCOVERY began as the weekly column "Fine Lines" on Jezebel, quickly becoming one of the blog's most popular features, with hundreds of comments on each post about a favorite young adult or kids novel. The recently published SHELF DISCOVERY collection is a successful blog-to-book transition, one that builds on the original blog-based idea, and is not just reprints of posts.
In SHELF DISCOVERY, Skurnick mainly covers novels published between 1960 and 1982, a truly amazing time for YA literature. Novels were brave, daring, and covered all sorts of unpleasant subjects. I was lucky enough to be a voracious reader who experienced some of the best young adult fiction while it was being published (or only a few years after it was published). YA lit declined rapidly around 1984 or so with the introduction of the Sweet Valley High series, bland books which soon numbered in the hundreds. The SVH plague was a blight on YA fiction for many, many years and it's hopefully dead by now. There's been an upswing in really great YA fiction again over the past ten years, especially in the science and speculative fiction genres, as well as graphic novels.
SHELF DISCOVERY isn't about new titles, it's about the old favorites, the titles many of us read over and over, and still read today. I'm still upset at my mom for donating most of my YA books to Goodwill, including works by Norma Klein, Ellen Conford, and many others. (Grrr.) Through library sales, thrift stores, and book swaps I've been rebuilding the collection.
When I started SHELF DISCOVERY, I immediately remembered so many small details about some of the books, silly little inconsequential details that have no effect on the plot, story, or characters, but nonetheless remained wedged in my brain (in some cases 25+ years later). Is it shameful that I can't recall the major characters and plots of most of my "required" high school and college reading, but can remember that in Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself, she had been humming the song "Beautiful Dreamer" to herself while floating in an inner tube when she was stung by a man-o-war? Or that in The Cat Ate My Jumpsuit, Marcy is worried that her new purple pantsuit will make her look like an enormous grape at her friend Nancy's party?
After reading only a few pages of SHELF DISCOVERY, all those details flooded back. I put the book aside and wrote down other small details I remembered from the novels discussed in the collection. For people who aren't familiar with these books, it's just going to look like a list of random gibberish. If you were a fan of any of these novels, you'll probably remember some of these details as well. Not surprisingly, this list is heavy on the Judy Blume.
Blubber: Jill eating a covert PB&J in a bathroom stall during a Bar Mitzvah. Jill & Tracy having to rake up a neighbor's leaves because they egged his mailbox; they get terrible blisters on their hands. Jill's family living on a private road with lots of trees. Jill being told she was underweight by the school nurse and advised to drink a malted every day.
Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret: Margaret turns in a letter to her teacher instead of a year-long project about how she tried to figure out religion by going to temple, mass, and reading a few books, but still being totally confused about it. (Note: This letter really affected me for some reason. Maybe I had agnostic/atheist leanings at age 11?) During their first "club meeting", Gretchen takes four Oreos from the plate, but when Nancy asks her how much weight she gained that summer she puts three back.
The Cat Ate My Gymsuit: The ugly rhinestone heart pin Joel buys for his estranged mother - he knows it's ugly but she'll have to pretend to like it. Marcy's father removing a part of the car engine so that Marcy & mom couldn't drive to school board meeting, but they got a ride from Nancy's mom. (Note: I remember even more small details from the sequel, There's a Bat in Bunk Five, which I liked even more.)
Harriet the Spy: Harriet writing really small in her notebook "I won't cry". The complete freedom with which Harriet moves around her part of Manhattan. The illustration of Harriet covered with splotches, sitting in a bathtub after her classmates spray her with ink.
Go Ask Alice: "Alice" constantly noting her weight. "Alice"'s mom buying her a scarf from I. Madigan. Halfway through the book a note from the "editor" saying that from that point on the entries had been written on scraps of paper and brown paper bags.
The Westing Game: The secretary with the painted crutches took shorthand notes during the reading of the will that turned out to be in Polish.
Deenie: Deenie and her friends sneaking into an R-rated move that turned out to be some sort of "gross medical drama". The old hunchback newslady. Blouses ripping on Deenie's brace and her mom getting a refund for them.
The Great Brain: I read this series so many times that the details from all seven original books run together, so these may not be from the first book only. JD giving mumps to Tom and Seth and then eating the heel of a fresh loaf of bread - toasted and smeared with sugar & butter - in front of them. Tom figuring out that the man who ran the store where he was buying stock for his "Academy Candy Store" was Lutheran and therefore wouldn't rat him out to the Jesuit priest. Tom reading Black Beauty to the tomboy Dottie Britches in an effort to interest her in reading.
Farmer Boy: The cobbler visiting for a few weeks to make them all shoes. The kids eating almost all of the sugar when their parents are away for a week.
Tiger Eyes: What a devastating book. The school nurse in NJ repeatedly asking Davey if she was pregnant when she hyperventilated and passed out. Davey Xmas shopping and finding an unusual candle her father would have liked - she has to return one of the rolls of wrapping paper she bought to get the candle. Davey's drunk friend in NM smashing a bottle of perfume in the school hallway.
Than Again, Maybe I Won't: Tony's grandma taking to her room when they hire a housekeeper at their new house. Tony buys her a silver toothbrush for Xmas from the "For the Woman Who Has Everything" section of Macy's (or was it Bloomingdale's?). Tony running up to her room and just crying and crying in her lap when he's just so confused over everything. The family's new maid giving Tony a photo album while he's in the hospital - he wonders if she thought it was for his x-rays.
There's many more books in SHELF DISCOVERY I've re-read recently like Forever, A Wrinkle in Time, and the incredibly dirty Domestic Arrangements. While Skurnick chose a wide range of books, even including classics like A Little Princess, there are many missing. How about the teenage alcoholic story The Late Great Me by Sandra Scoppettone? Or the psychic girl story And This is Laura by Ellen Conford? Where are Betsy Byars' books featuring lower income families like The TV Kid, Summer of the Swans, and The Night Swimmers? And where, where, where is The Outsiders?
Everyone who grew up reading these books is bound to discover some of their favorites are missing from SHELF DISCOVERY. However, they'll also find many other books they missed the first time around. It's a loving (re)collection, and a great guide to a fascinating era of YA literature.
And after reading it, you just might remember Claudia buying mac-and-cheese and coffee from the Automat in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, too.
6 comments:
I can't wait to read this book! This post sent me straight to my bookshelf to dig out Harriet the Spy. I think I was too young when I first read it--I never really understood who Ole Golly was. Like, who is this strange bossy woman who is not a relative, but lives in her house and takes care of her? The concept of a nanny just wasn't part of my world.
I wish I could blame my mother, but I got rid of most of my books myself and now wish I hadn't. There's a Bat in Bunk Five was one of my favorites. Does Marcy buy a Tshirt with a rainbow on the front during a trip to Woodstock?
Did anyone read In Summertime It's Tuffy by Judie Angell? The plot involved a voodoo doll and 11-year-old girls at camp.
Marcy and Ted actually bought t-shirts with the "I (heart) NY" logo on them. Marcy got her name in rainbow letters on the back. But the did go to a store called "The Rainbow Shop". What can I say, I love that book.
I sort of remember "In Summertime It's Tuffy".
Harriet the Spy is an incredibly advanced book for kids. I too missed the social class references and though it was strange that the Welch's had both a cook AND a sitter (I didn't realize OG was a "nanny"). Time for another re-read.
The Great Brain! I loved those books. One stupid detail I remember- in one of the books there was a kid who lost his leg in an accident. I was used to this just being a sort of a plot device and figured we'd never see this kid again since there's not much he can do that would top losing a leg. But the kid actually did show up in future books which I thought was nice. Tom Fitzgerald also wrote a book for adults that I always meant to read.
One more thing about the Great Brain only vaguely related to the topic- I read those books in the mid 80's and they took place in the early 20th century. They purported to be autobiographical so every time I got a new book I kind of marvelled at how this guy in his 80's was still cranking out new books. Then one day it dawned on me that these books were several years old and Tom Fitzgerald was not only no longer wriitng, but he was also quite possibly dead. This made me kinda sad.
This is great! I've just recently been racking my brains trying to remember the titles of half of these books, which I loved.
John Fitzgerald wrote the Great Brain, not Tom. Tom was the Great Brain himself. Now I'm not even 100% sure the last name was Fitzgerald, but if I look it up and I'm wrong I'll feel really stupid so I'll just leave it be.
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