Tag: teen fiction

My Mother’s Boyfriend and Me
Jacoby
1987

This title gave me the creeps. Evidently Laurie’s mom (widowed when Laurie was a baby) went off the rails and starting dating a very cool dude named “Blue” (cuz of his eyes!). Two week after meeting this dude, Mom invites Blue to move in. Laurie notices that the guy is creeping on her and tries to tell Mom, but she defends Blue. Seriously, the guy’s nickname is Blue and he wears a gold chain and his shirt partially unbuttoned-even in the 1980s that was a creepy kind of look.

Old Friends, New Friends
On our own #4
Quin-Harkins
1986

Jill and Toni are besties and are ready to start adulting for real. Both of them plan to attend State U. Then Toni doesn’t get to go to college because of family problems and Jill gets a chance to get into that super first tier school called Rosemont. Everyone is having a difficult time. Jill gets a horrible roommate and Toni tells off the icky roommate when she visits Jill. Friendship troubles just blossom. Happily enough, they get their issues sorted and come to a new understanding. Growing up is difficult.

Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack!
Kerr
1972

Submitter: This was . . . probably an OK book in 1972? And probably great in our context (small rural town in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula – about as far as it gets from Brooklyn.) I might take it home and read it. There’s a cat named Nader! The boy wants to be a librarian! It was adapted into an After-School Special! But it’s 2020. Our current YA patrons’ mothers are too young for this book. Also, it’s a mass market paperback in a library binding – the pages are brittle and falling out. It’s time to go.

Junior Miss Benson 1945 (original copyright 1939) This vintage gem first started as a series of short stories featured in the New Yorker back in the 1930s. Our protagonist is a 13 year old girl named Judy Graves. This series

House of Stairs Sleator 1974 (originally published) 1991 (paperback edition) I remember this book from when I was a teen and it was pretty cool. I was a fan of those dystopian society/social experiment movies and books. My favorites from

License to Drive: a novelization Singer 1988 Submitter: I thought this was an awful book because first, I hate movie adaptation books as a genre; second, it’s SO old and dated—from my high school years—and I was embarrassed to see this