When I was about twelve, I inherited some hand-me-down books from my beautiful cousin, Darlene.
She was seven years older than me and I thought everything about her- from her hairstyle to the fact that she had a vanity table in her bedroom- was the height of chic and sophistication. The age gap between nineteen and twelve was uncrossable.
To me, she was a distant blonde star with lipstick in her purse and tasseled dance cards tacked onto her bulletin board. A real-life glamour queen who rode in cars and talked to boys. She was kind but she seldom glimpsed in my adolescent direction.
But on one memorable visit, with regal noblesse oblige, she gave me some books she had outgrown- The Reluctant Heart and Class Ring.
And with this regift, Cousin Darlene opened up a whole new world for me- the fun, carefree, innocent sagas of teenage girls in the nineteen forties and fifties.
Their respective authors, Janet Lambert and Rosamond du Jardin, wrote several series of books targeted for this very market. They were formulaic, following the adventures of adorable sisters- twins in some cases- as they navigated their way through a bygone and much less-complicated era
Think Pleasantville (the black and white part) and you’ll know exactly the time frame I’m referring to.
I read and reread them hungrily. They were like guidebooks to another planet. The families in them were nothing like mine. The problems in them were nothing like mine.
It was all so G Rated and wholesome, and if I couldn’t relate to the heroines and their tragedies and triumphs as they negotiated high school, homework, and high heels, I was enthralled nonetheless.
And though I haven’t read these books in years, as I browse the “Young Adult” section at the book store (the store itself soon to be a relic of a bygone era, I fear) I remember them fondly.
I see what titles are popular for young and impressionable girls these days. The Hunger Games and Twilight. Curiosity- and their enormous popularity- made me give them a try
I dipped my toe into The Hunger Games – an updated e.p. of that Shirley Jackson story we all had to read -“The Lottery.” I sped read my way through about half of part one.
I downloaded a sample of Twilight on my Kindle. Ditto.
The writing in both is okay. Serviceable. It’s no better or worse than the breezy, dopey prose of Lambert and du Jardin. No one is winning the Whitbread or Booker prize or the Newbery medal here.
But that is where the similarity ends. Today’s teenaged girls have it so much tougher than their Penny Howard and Tobey Heydon counterparts. I feel sorry for the young girls today.
Oy vey. What tsuris they’ve got.
In Y.A. literature of old, a big problem was when our heroine didn’t get the lead in the high school play. She’s the understudy.
Today’s heroine’s big problem: She didn’t get picked for the fight-to-the-death lotto in the dystopian post-apocalyptic waste land where the high school used to stand. She’s the understudy.
Big problem in Y.A. lit then: Two boys ask our girl to the prom. Which one should she choose? The dreamy actor or the high school jock?
Big problem now: Two boys ask our girl to the prom. Which one should she choose? The brooding vampire or the hunky werewolf?
Big problem then: Mom goes off to care for a married daughter’s family when she’s going to have another baby. She’s gone three weeks and the house is a mess.
Big problem now: Mom goes off with Ramon, her twenty-six year old Zumba instructor. Forever. Dear old Dad is a mess.
Big problem then: Our heroine can’t tell Mom and Dad that she’s wearing her beau’s class ring. They’d be very disappointed that he’s tying her down.
Big problem now. Our heroine can’t tell Mom and Dad that she and her beau are reading Fifty Shades of Grey. They’d be very disappointed that he’s tying her down.
Big problem then: Test results.
Big problem now: Test results.
Who needs this aggravation? Why do today’s young women have to wrestle with sad, dark images of sex, violence, euthanasia, murder, evil, alienation, and mortality?
They can see those every time they watch television, download a movie, or get a tweet.
We live in a very different world than those two dated, unhip chroniclers, Mesdames Lambert and du Jardin. And that’s what makes them so much fun.
So next time a Y.A. you know is having a birthday, be like my beautiful cousin Darlene.
Go to the website, order Star Spangled Summer or Glory Be! or Boy Trouble or Practically Seventeen and bestow it upon them.
There’s only penny loafers and blue jeans, sock hops, hot rods, and malt shops to handle. Not a werewolf in sight.
I can’t promise that your Young Adult will love them.
But you will.
