I want to talk about YA books for girls in the 1980s. Books like Anastasia Ask Your Analyst, and The Girl with the Silver Eyes
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Besides PBS and the Thundercats, these books were pretty much the only media I had available during my nerdy nerdy youth. And since I hadn’t been sentient for too long, so they had a disproportionate impact on my social development.
I wasn’t alone. The fine ladies at Jezebel (One of those Gawker media blogs. I’m usually against ’em. This one, however doesn’t suck.) do a recurring feature called Fine Lines, which is UNCANNY in its ability to suss out YA books from my misspent youth.
I checked out an average of 14 books a week from two different local libraries, thanks to my geek parents. Most of the books I read were comic anthologies like Peanuts, Bloom County, Garfield and (odd for a 12 year old) Doonesbury. However, the books that really got through were the ones like Island of the Blue Dolphins, or From the mixed up files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankeweiler
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Fine Lines has them all, lovingly glossed and tinted with a healthy dose of grown-up lady perspective. Go. Go now. Read and remember. You were not alone.
Like WK, I LOVED that book. This is the first time that I heard of someone else even knowing of it. I always wanted a sequel or a series.
of course I’m not a thirty something until Dec…
um, I read a lot, but didn’t read a single one of those books growing up… at least I’m on the third page and haven’t read one of ’em as a kid (though I’ve read the secret garden and a little princess as an adult, when I got them for my daughter)
I think your character was most formed by those re-print books of POGO cartoons. ;-)
I also read Doonesbury when I was 12. Then I went back and read the whole series from the beginning when I was in junior high. I was somewhat lost during the Henry Kissinger lectures at Walden storyline, but I made it through.
LOVED The Girl with the Silver Eyes. Definitely one of my favorites. In fact, I recently re-read it to see if I still like it as much as I did back then. Yup. Still do. Can’t wait to see the other books that made the list.
Ooh thanks for the link, this captures my childhood heart.
Awesome. There’s even a couple of books there that I read… There should be a male version of jezebel that would review things like Hatchet… not that girls wouldn’t read Hatchet… and what about the earlier books, like oh… every choose your own adventure?