Children's Books

[sleepy]

I understand why they make those changes, but it still rubs me the wrong way.

Hey, why don't they techno-update the Bible? or The Illiad? That could actually be kinda funny.

I loved the Judy Blume books so much. I like Norma Klein even more, though. I think I know what I'm tracking down from the library!

[dwanollah]

YOU KNOW NORMA KLEIN?!?!

NO ONE else knows Norma Klein! She's BRILL! Do you know most of her books are now out of print? I'm re-working a critical article on her for a Children's Lit. journal, in fact.

[kanding]

As a child and adolescent in the 70s, it was pretty hard to miss Norma Klein, so it amazes me that her books are out of print. In fact, the natural progression seemed to be from Judy Blume to Norma Klein (Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret to Mom, the Wolfman and Me) . It was also generally accepted that Judy Blume was for kids who rarely picked up a book for pleasure, Norma Klein for the more literate and sophisticated. Or what passed for sophisticated for a group of twelve year-olds in my Midwestern town.

I'm not familiar with current YA literature, but I look back and marvel at the things that Klein dealt with in her books: abortion and single parenthood to name two. And she wrote with a deep respect for adolescents. It's been thirty years since I read anything by her, but I remember feeling that Klein gave her characters and readers credit for having insight and truly trying to deal with the crises thrown in their paths.

It's so good to read her name! Now I'm off to amazon to see what I can find. There's got to be a dealer somewhere with her books.

[spinsterliz]

Reading Norma Klein's book Naomi in the Middle is how I found out about sex when I was a kid. The main character, Naomi, is told by her older sister exactly how their mom got pregnant. I about died when I read it. I had no idea that little tidbit was coming.

I always hated Judy Blume. Her books were all the same, always about some girl who was unhappy that her boobs were small and she didn't have her period. I don't think Judy got the memo that not every nice girl in the whole world is underdeveloped.

[sleepy]

Dwan, I would love to read your article, if you wouldn't mind, that is.

[ladymadonna]

OMG, I loved Norma Klein too!

I'm still so upset at the pervasive re-writing of Judy Blume, that I am almost afraid to go back and check out some of my beloved authors from my youth.

I re-read the Trixie Belden series a while ago, and they seemed ok. Except the "new" ones that were written in like, the 90's. Total crap.

Oh, and I know I asked this question a while ago on one of the threads here, but it's still bugging me.

There's a YA novel about a girl who is sent to her uncle(?)s house on a lake for the summer, and she gets involved in a ghost mystery. Like the ghost is a teen girl in red(?), and the lake was somehow involved?? I'm sure it's something like Mystery on ____ Lake or something like that, but I've not been able to find the exact book, 'cause I don't recall the author. The girl in the book sort of befriends the ghost to find out the mystery of her death to solve it IRL. I could tell you the exact location it was on the bookshelf of the library I haunted when I was 11, lol! It's not Lois Duncan, I've ruled that out. (Though I love Lois Duncan)

[thetigs]

And I thought I was the only one who read Norma Klein. Whenever I mentioned her books to others, no one who I was talking about! I have found my people. I loved Sunshine, Mom, the Wolfman and Me, and It's O.K. if You Don't Love Me. I haven't thought about her in years, so I didn't realize her books were out of print. I feel like heading over to Alibris and getting copies.

Dwanollah, I'd love to read your paper, as well.

[chonies]

I love Norma Klein, too! I would be interested in tracking down why Norma Klein's books are OOP, although I would guess that it has something to do with the sexual mores. I think it was Norma K (and not Fox-Mazer) who wrote that book about the woman who had the baby and the baby's father was gay. She also had two Great Danes and wanted the male to have a vasectomy, not a castration. What was that book? The baby's name was Bruno.

I liked Norma Klein better than Judy Blume. So many of Judy Blume's characters were whiny and chicken-y. I hated Sheila Tubman so much! Also, there was something kind of flat about Peter Hatcher--I loved everyone around him, but I just didn't buy Pee-tah. Deenie was okay (special place!!), but Sally Freeman was the best. She had the scaredy-cat reality aspect but the Beezus-style pluck that made Beverly Cleary so wonderful. And Sally's friends were fabulous.

[beautifulanddamned]

My mom recently gave me a box of old crap from our attic and inside was my fave childhood book- Wait Till Helen Comes by Mary Downing Hahn. Scared the bejeezus out of me as a kid, but it actually holds up pretty well. I remember that in grade school, the waiting list for this book was a mile long. The Dollhouse Murders by Betty Ren Wright was big too. We were, I guess, morbid little bastards.

[Deleted]

This probably isn't what you're looking for, ladymadonna, but I remember reading a ghost story where a girl goes away for the summer, falls in love, solves the mystery of ghostly girl haunting the place--titled "Jane-Emily"--but I don't remember a lake playing into the plot much.