Young Adult Literature

[ownlife]

I was in a used bookstore last weekend and ran across a copy of "Mr. and Mrs. Bo Jo Jones" (plot: teenaged girl gets pregnant, marries boyfriend, and the two struggle with married life) and had to buy it. It sounds so dated now, what parents would permit their teenaged children to marry these days? The BoJos were pretty popular though when I was in 6th-7th grade. I was also fond of Mrs. Mike, Joy in the Morning, and Tomorrow Will be Better, the latter two were written by the author of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.

[dwanollah]

That book is such a scream! I reviewed it in an ancient Blather about YA books on my website. Bo Jo and July. Really? Bo Jo and July? Yup, Bo Jo and July.

[chiqui]

I remember a couple from way, way back, not who the authors were unfortunately.

One was Baby Island, about two teenage girls -- a tomboy type, and a motherly type -- who are somehow cast adrift in a lifeboat with five babies in the Dutch Indonesian archipelago, and how they survive (they run into a gruff but friendly castaway with a goat that gives milk.) More humorous and gentle than Lost-type survival angst.

I also remember a book called The Red Room set during the Great Depression, about a girl and her family traveling around to find work. They finally get seasonal jobs at a peach-canning place where the girl explores a deserted mansion, discovering a secret room with a library paneled all in red velvet, where she spends many hours alone reading the books.

As for series, I remember one about a tomboy girl from the American South named Katie John, and her misadventures. The girls there all had boys middle names -- Betsy Joe, Pammy Ray, etc. Another author named Marilyn Sachs wrote a series about a Jewish girl named Amy growing up in Brooklyn in the 1930s or 1940s (? there were no telephones save for those in the local candy store, or party lines) that epanded to include the lives of the local bully, Veronica Ganz, and her superior older sister Rosemary and whiny little brother Stanley.

And I do remember The Late, Great Me. The author was Sandra Scoppetone?

[Deleted]

"Baby Island" is by Carol Ryrie (?) Brink. I, too, loved that book, but would probably classify it as children's, not young adult.
The Katie John books are written by Mary Calhoun; I think they were written in the 70's. They might still be available in some libraries. (The libraries where I live are pretty pathetic and rarely have books dating prior to the 90's, except for certain classics, but Interlibrary Loan is a great invention!)

[Deleted]

I was looking for a book for my cousin for a birthday gift and came across Hatchet by Gary Pulsan. I remeber being forced to read that in 6th grade, then loving it. and all those damn American Girl books. Anyone else read Sideways Stories from Wayside School? where the school that was supposed to have 30 classrooms built side by side but someone messed up and it was 30 stories high? Chocolate Fever was annother i recall loving.

a couple of others. Number the Stars, Where the Sidewalk Ends (and the other two that were in the series.) Phantom Tollbooth (loved the movie as well), and James and the Giant Peach.

[CarolinaGirl]

I am having a major memory block. How does Mr. and Mrs. Bo Jo Jones end?

What about I Want to Keep My Baby!? Which was turned into a TV movie starring Mariel Hemingway. Or maybe the TV movie was turned into a book.

[chiqui]

What about I Want to Keep My Baby!? Which was turned into a TV movie starring Mariel Hemingway. Or maybe the TV movie was turned into a book.

I can still see little Mariel covering her ears and screwing up her face when her baby won't stop crying, turning away from the screaming infant and saying in all wooden earnestness, "Please stop crying, Amy! Please stop!" One of those classic I know I shouldn't laugh, BUT... TV moments.

[CarolinaGirl]

I still have my sister's copy of I Want To Keep My Baby! It is all beaten up with torn pages, but I cannot give it up.

[ownlife]

I assume I don't need to spoiler the ending of an almost 40-year old book, so carolinagirl, the baby dies, July gets a job, BoJo continues his education and they stay married.

[dwanollah]

carolinagirl said:

I am having a major memory block. How does Mr. and Mrs. Bo Jo Jones end?

This is what I wrote about the ending (i.e. Blatant Self-Promotion):

The other thing that bugged me is the whole "we HAVE to get married!" dealie, yadda yadda, because there’s going to be a baby thing, and… then the baby dies. It’s almost like those books where the main character is diagnosed with a life-threatening disease, and goes around making all these life changes and amendments based on that… and then on the last page, there’s the scene where the doctor says "Ooops, we make a mistake. You just have a bad cold" or something. Or two people who shouldn’t’ve gotten married do so, and one partner unexpectedly dies within the first year or so, which, I guess, "validates" the bad marriage in some way. I mean, it kinda lets you off the hook from being responsible, dealing with the concrete results of something. And it just pisses me off, because real life rarely happens like this… that getting-pregnant-the-only-time-you-have-sex thing is FAR more probable!

But anyway, then July follows Bo Jo to State U., where his football scholarship is for, and "supports" him with a dinky secretarial job. Well, she got to take an Elizabethan Drama class as a present from her parents, and she’ll have "a couple credits if I ever need them." And she calls this a "happy ending" to their story. Gee. Lucky her.

Unlike some of the other books here, I don’t have to speculate about what might’ve happened in the future. We’ve already seen how this story pans out: remember that TV show One Day at a Time…?