Lost Classics of Teen Lit: 1939-1989

October 22, 2021 9:46 AM

This delightful blog summarizes and reviews (mostly) YA lit spanning (roughly) five decades, from the well-known to the obscure. Judy Blume is here, and so is Beverly Cleary’s Leave it to Beaver tie-in, V.C. Andrews’ “second-most infamous book”, Barthe DeClements, Paul Zindel, and Stephen King. Celebrate the holidays with the Wakefield Twins of Sweet Valley High, learn how to babysit from the Baby-Sitters Club, and browse vintage issues of Seventeen. The entire sagas of Ginny Gordon and Polly French are covered here, as is a fair chunk of Silhouette's First Love series and some Nancy Drew, sort of. What about that book that you read when you were younger which you just can’t remember the title of? Maybe Molly or her readers can help!
posted by May Kasahara (24 comments total)

Warning, major rabbit hole alert.

For some of these, they are very educational: "huh, THAT was the point the author was trying to make, that I didn't get because I was only nine when I read it and should have been twelve or thirteen?"
posted by Melismata at 10:17 AM on October 22, 2021 [7 favorites]

Well, there goes my afternoon.
posted by tangosnail at 10:29 AM on October 22, 2021 [7 favorites]

VC Andrews books had an awful lot of horny stuff in them for supposedly being YA. Why yes, I did read them all as an impressionable young teen. But I'm pretty sure I was sneaking, like, nobody put "Flowers in the Attic" in my Christmas stocking when I was 13.
posted by Serene Empress Dork at 10:31 AM on October 22, 2021 [12 favorites]

I see no Christopher Pike on this blog, and I read those as obsessively as I read Sweet Valley Whatever books from the late 80s through 1991 or so.

And thanks to Wikipedia, I now know there were two mid-90s followups to his 1989 Remember Me, and I am tempted to read them... but I probably won't.
posted by erst at 11:06 AM on October 22, 2021 [6 favorites]

A ghostwriter wrote a sequel to My Sweet Audrina? I'm afraid to look. I fear a ghostwriter can't possibly be as fucked up as the original recipe author.
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:14 AM on October 22, 2021 [1 favorite]

The sequels to "Flowers in the Attic," all of which I think were written by ghostwriters, were quite fucked up.
posted by Melismata at 11:16 AM on October 22, 2021 [2 favorites]

VC Andrews books had an awful lot of horny stuff in them for supposedly being YA.

Was VC Andrews supposed to be YA? I always thought they were marketed towards adults and pre/teens just snuck them from the bookshelves.

A ghostwriter wrote a sequel to My Sweet Audrina? I'm afraid to look. I fear a ghostwriter can't possibly be as fucked up as the original recipe author.

Here's a spoiler review of Whitefern. I'm satisfied with the end result for Audrina. Arden got off easy.
posted by Constance Mirabella at 11:42 AM on October 22, 2021 [3 favorites]

erst, according to one of the comments I came across, she really dislikes Christopher Pike and RL Stine. For Remember Me, the followups were fine, and more satisfying than whatever he was trying to do for The Last Vampire (apparently there are more books in that series now).
posted by toastyk at 12:00 PM on October 22, 2021 [2 favorites]

I can't thank you enough for posting this. This is my kind of thing and I'd love to read more older YA novels.
posted by Ms. Moonlight at 12:27 PM on October 22, 2021 [1 favorite]

I was a kid in West Africa when I encountered a ton of Enid Blyton. Talk about colonialism. I have the ghost of a recollection that the fizzy ginger beers and sandwiches left an impression, but many Enid Blyton books (and years) later and I can't come up with anything more than that. The Battle of Helm's Deep, on the other hand, still leaves a visceral memory.. the army cot relegated to my use, shared bedroom with older brother, sofa cushions for a mattress, and clenched guts reading that segment.
posted by elkevelvet at 1:51 PM on October 22, 2021 [5 favorites]

I'm really happy reading the Gordon Korman recaps. The crazy moneymaking schemes! The salete! I still think of the salete!
posted by jenfullmoon at 2:38 PM on October 22, 2021 [8 favorites]

I still think of the salete!

Without even looking it up, I can quote from memory (I think):

"It's French, Chip. It means dirt."
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 2:45 PM on October 22, 2021 [5 favorites]

And we'll put it in a nice wooden box!
posted by jenfullmoon at 2:47 PM on October 22, 2021 [2 favorites]

And we'll put it in a nice wooden box!

Painted sky blue. Symbolic, you know?
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 2:50 PM on October 22, 2021 [2 favorites]

ohh no you didn't.. my memory crypt containing all those "Who Is Bugs Potter" memories just cracked wide open!

what have you unleashed??

edit: The First Potter
posted by elkevelvet at 3:17 PM on October 22, 2021 [4 favorites]

Yes, fell down the memory hole, supper’s not started and now I’ve drifted over to Stump the Bookseller and that led to Forgotten Books and Stories. I’ve found two book titles! Unfortunately extant copies are wildly overpriced for these particular very-not-classic-but curious-to-read-one-more-time books.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 4:04 PM on October 22, 2021 [1 favorite]

Ok, so she has Secrets of the Shopping Mall but not Saturday the 12th of October , hmmmm. Not sure of creds. JK thanks for the memory hole!!
posted by Gyre,Gimble,Wabe, Esq. at 4:52 PM on October 22, 2021 [1 favorite]

I love Secrets of the Shopping Mall! It totally holds up on rereading as an adult. One thing I always wonder is, did the author set out to make an opposite From The Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler or was it just a coincidence? (Shopping Mall: poor kids from New York City run away from home and live in a suburban mall; Mixed-up Files: rich kids from the suburbs run away from home and live in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.) The one thing that makes me think it was intentional and not a coincidence is that there is a scene in Secrets of the Shopping Mall where the kids throw their last nickels into a fountain - the exact opposite of Mixed-up Files where the kids figure out they can steal coins from the fountain.
posted by Daily Alice at 6:45 PM on October 22, 2021 [5 favorites]

Re Sweet Valley High - Red Lemonade did some good recaps. Also I think My Favourite Murder did a podcast about VC Andrews.
posted by paduasoy at 12:32 AM on October 23, 2021

Major rabbit hole, as Melismata notes! It’s got me remembering bits and pieces of books that have stuck with me through the years.

I was glad to see one Cherry Ames book included among the other “plucky nurses who solve mysteries” titles.

I always assumed that the plot of My Sweet Audrina didn’t make any sense to me because I read it when I was, like, seven or something. I’m glad to know that it was just shitty writing all along.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 1:29 AM on October 23, 2021

I have been doing a complete chronological re-read of everything Beverly Cleary ever wrote, and let me tell you: nothing tests your commitment to a complete Beverly Cleary re-read like her Leave It To Beaver adaptations. Later on, she admitted that she took the gig mostly because she could knock them out while sitting in her car waiting to pick her kids up. It shows. They're competently written, but they don't have anywhere near the creativity and depth of characterization of her other books.

On the other hand, as a writer, I find it weirdly encouraging that even my literary heroes sometimes had to crank out stuff for hire.
posted by yankeefog at 1:35 AM on October 23, 2021 [5 favorites]

The Sunfire Romances were the best.

(Caroline was my favorite)
posted by thivaia at 10:36 AM on October 23, 2021

The Egypt Game isn’t found by the blog search.

Maybe meant for a little younger but I associate it with The Mixed Up Files, Westing Game, the shopping mall one, etc.
posted by snuffleupagus at 2:11 PM on October 23, 2021 [1 favorite]

I was a kid in West Africa when I encountered a ton of Enid Blyton. Talk about colonialism.

The best antidote for Enid Blyton is the parody that spawned a catchphrase ("LASHINGS of ginger beer!") that's now indelibly linked to her books, despite not having appeared in any of them.
posted by delfin at 10:18 AM on October 24, 2021 [1 favorite]