Bad Books for Kids

Recently, at our holiday work party, we had a little friendly contest to see which staff member could find the worst book cover in our collection. Entries were submitted anonymously and voting took place during the pot luck lunch.
This was my contribution:


Ok, ok -- before anyone jumps down my throat for being insensitive to this serious subject, I do agree that there should be children's books that address issues that some kids sadly have to cope with. My problem with this book was the unfortunate title paired with the depressing cover art and the funny image of dad slumped over in his drinkin' chair. The book is over 20 years old and is the last copy in our collection, so I have to imagine that the children's department now has to have something better or at least more relevant. The children's staff member I did show it to was shocked that we still owned it, but did do a very entertaining reading of it using his "storytime" voice.

Of course I didn't win, and the books that placed 1st, 2nd, and 3rd weren't really unintentially funny (ok, maybe 2nd was) so apparently I work with some folks that don't get it(which actually sounds about right). I voted for the book below, as whichever coworker who submitted it understood what the contest was really all about, asking yourself which editor approved that?!

Trixie gets a surprise from her friend's busy hand!

What?! With a side of Why and Noooooo!

Had to post this here after browsing the Urban Outfitters website and seeing this!

For some odd reason (the movie?) Sweet Valley High is being rereleased and sold at Urban Outfitters. I'm curious to know if there was some repackaging and editting/updating going on there too, as you can tell from my previous review that this book is cold boogers on a plate next to the Gossip Girl series or 99% of the young adult lit that is out there right now. I liked the new tagline for this book "Secrets are meant to be spoken" but I would have suggested "Secrets this lame are meant to be kept to oneself, srsly!" And I cannot believe they're charging $5.99 for it when I got mine for a quarter.

"Secret secrets are no fun, secret secrets hurt someone"

I decided to take a break from my "serious adult reading" and read the recently donated "serious teen reading" Sweet Valley High: Secrets.
I didn't really get into the Sweet Valley High series -- by the time I was old enough to read them, I wasn't interested (college is a different story). I did read about 30 or so of the Sweet Valley Twins series in grade school. Actually, I am embarrassed to admit I was probably in 5th or 6th grade still reading SVT, while I noticed today that when I cracked open Secrets, it's recommended for ages 12 and up. Alright, I was a bit immature back then and still wanted to be a member of the unicorn club, ok?!

This title was the second in the SVH series following the lives of beautiful California twin sisters, Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield (I recall each SVT book was required at some point to mention their tanned skin, sunkissed hair, eyes as blue as swimming pools) as they navigate the turbulent waters of teen life at Sweet Valley High. I found Secrets to be particularly dull as it spent most of its 118 pages chronicling the break-up of secondary characters Enid and Ronnie after Jessica gives Ronnie a copy of a letter from Enid's ex-boyfriend (discussing how they used "bennies" and once hit a kid with their car!) and instead of being upset with Enid's drug abusing, kid running over past, Ronnie is jealous that she's still communicating with her ex! At the same time there is a rumor going around started by that bitch Lila Fowler that their French teacher is having an affair with the student she tutors after school. This is some scandalous shiz for a 12-year-old!
I thought a more appropriate title for this book would have been Gossip, since that was going on throughout, and I was more than half way through when I remembered that it was about secrets instead: Enid's secret past, the fact that she was keeping it a secret from her jerky boyfriend, and Jessica secretly copying the letter and letting Elizabeth take the rap. Oh yeah, the reason why Jessica is trying to ruin Enid's life is because she doesn't want her sister Elizabeth to have any other friends and Jessica wants to be crowned queen of the dance so that she can be with hunky Bruce Patman.
I was only 5-years-old when this book came out, and I find the language and descriptions even embarrassing for back then -- the teachers "sock it to (them)" with homework, outdated references to E.T. and the Boston Strangler, and the clothing descriptions! The lead singer of the Droids (SV's "answer to the Rolling Stones" with a female lead?) is all decked out in "black velvet jeans, sparkly pink leg warmers over the jeans and a purple satin top." Yes, I think I turned out fine for having skipped this series during my formative years.
On a scale of squeaky clean teen fun, Sweet Valley High: Secrets is more badass than staying out past your curfew since Jessica actually gets into some wine(!), but not as hardcore as, say crushing up Smarties candy and snorting it like cocaine off of your desk during recess.
Not recommended for: adults with a reading level above 6th grade, or today's teen, who probably doesn't know who E.T. or the Boston Stranger are.

Golly gee, working in the library sure is swell!

Back in April, I mentioned this book after it was featured on Awful Library Books because...well, look at it! Since there weren't any libraries near me carrying this gem, I requested it as an ILL for a fun-bad-book-summer-read and just finished it over the weekend.
Jinny Williams is a recent high school graduate who lands her dream job -- library assistant for the local library she loves and has volunteered and paged at for as long as she can remember. The book follows Jinny for a year in her life as she learns the ins and outs of the job, experiences dizzying career highs (a chat with the mayor) and soul crushing lows (a theft in the library), in addition to the trouble of balancing two interested suitors at once. The book often reads like a cheap romance mashed together with a instructional manual with a scene on how to process late notices followed by a (tame) make-out session at the drive-in, so it's easy to see how two authors wrote it (one a librarian), but maybe didn't blend their work as seamlessly as they imagined. The writing is very simple, everything is modified by adjective or adverb: "shaking her head vehemently", "Jinny said blithely", or Jinny's new hat is "disgustingly cute", etc.
The book is wince inducing painfully outdated at times. While somethings can be accounted for due to its 1962 publication date (on page 80, Jinny feels a “housewifely pride” in the neat appearance of the library shelves), it's Jinny's romantic options that caused me to cringe the most. Joe, her current boyfriend, is 21, works a blue collar job, and is pressuring her to settledown. He also argues with Jinny in nearly every interaction they have, does not appreciate the library or her need to have a job, and calls her a "snob" when Jinny complains that she can't marry him because she hasn't even met his parents yet. Paul is the "other guy," a junior college student transfering to Princeton that meets Jinny in the library. Paul introduces Jinny to activities that she has always wanted to do that Joe is never interested in, such as going to see a play, or square dancing. Paul is also polite to Jinny, comes from a wealthy family that likes to sing Swedish Christmas carols (?), and happens to look like Joe's twin. I won't spoil the ending for you, but Jinny says some stuff that would have Helen Gurley Brown spinning in her grave.

Overall, this was a very quaint read and I do at times feel sorry for poor Jinny Williams, Library Assistant, because she is on the brink of an age that is about to change forever. While organizing some magazines, Jinny mentions that she likes Caroline and Jackie Kennedy and how nice it is to have a lovely looking family in the White House. Jinny doesn't know that within a year the President will be assassinated, that Beatlemania is on its way to change the landscape of music, that paintings of soup cans will suddenly be art, that we will land on the moon, and that men will be faced with the Vietnam war lottery draft while women will burn their bras in protest of being second class citizens. There is a simpleness in these old books that is simultaneously ignorant and charming. However, Jinny does live in the most bland world and salary for a Senior Library assistant is listed as $1.25 - $1.85 an hour -- with that kind of dough you can buy yourself a whole Coke!
On a scale of career girl reads, I'd rate Jinny Williams, Library Assistant better than sitting home barefoot and pregnant, but far less liberating than being Oprah or a congresswoman.
Recommended for: librarians who need a laugh or nostalgic nerds who enjoy these career romances written during a time they never had to live through.

More Bad Author Photos

Meet Johnny Boggs. Johnny is a writer of--wait for it!--westerns. Johnny feels the need to look "authentic." Who can blame him? Lots of us white people feel similarly fraudulent most of the time. Some of us put on hoodies and rap CDs and start using our version of the urban patois we picked up from TV shows and movies. Some of us get MLS's and write bitter nonsense in blogs. But Johnny has a real need to look authentic: he has an author photo shoot to go to. He had to think fast, our Johnny. He could have worn the Dockers and polo shirt he wears most days, but that didn't feel right. Even if Zane Grey himself (or rather, his own self) dressed like an accountant for his author snaps, times have changed, and the people expect their western authors to look, well, western. Such a problem! He had the hat and the unshaven look of the mountain man, but he didn't have the clothes. Quickly, he dashed to his closet. There, in the back, past the Members Only jacket from his youth and the souvenir velvet Chicago Cubs pullover, was the scratchy wool tunic he wore in high school band where he cut a fine figure marching along in his white shoes, swinging his clarinet to and fro to the jazzy, marchy renditions of the Prince songs he loved so dearly. But he'd put on a little weight in the intervening years, and it no longer buttoned up at the neck so well any more. What to do? But Johnny is nothing if not resourceful. He rifled Mom's linen closet until he found the yellow tablecloth she only used for about a week and a half in the spring when the jonquils were full on. She wouldn't miss it for one afternoon. Or would she? If she did, there'd be no pie on Sunday. Throwing caution to the wind like the ornery desperadoes in his books, Johnny wrapped the tablecloth around his neck, hopped in the Hyundai with the "I'd Rather Be Killin' Injuns" bumper sticker on it, and sped off to the photo studio.

Satan + Teens = Good Times

I first read Jay's Journal when I was like 11 or 12 because it seemed like a pretty badass thing to do, like wearing Megadeth t-shirts to school and flipping off my gym teacher (when he wasn't looking). This book seemed like it was the ultimate taboo: drugs, sex, alcohol, and SATAN!!! And it was someone's personal true diary so reading it was like extra naughty.
Now, nearly two decades later, I decided to give the book another try as crossed by my desk on its way out of our library collection. Jay's Journal is supposedly the "true" story of a 16-year-old boy who committed suicide in 1971, based off his diary discovered by "Dr." Beatrice Sparks who just so happened to come across another shocking teen diary, the more popular Go Ask Alice, another "true" story of a teen girl who gets involved with drugs and prostitution. This cautionary tale starts off with 14-year-old Jay starting high school and scribbling in his diary lots of stuff a 14-year-old boy would never say, not in the 1970's, not now. The language is probably one of the things that bothered me the most, in that it comes across as so unauthentic and reads exactly like a phony doctor trying to sound like a teen - can you dig it?
Jay's life is full of ups and downs: Jay hates his parents, Jay loves his two best friends, Jay gets a girlfriend, Jay's girlfriend is addicted to amphetamines, Jay gets a job in his dad's pharmacy, Jay steals drugs for his girlfriend, Jay has sex, Jay drinks and uses drugs, Jay gets sent to bad boys town type place, Jay gets introduced to psychic powers by a weirdo staff member who later molests another boy, Jay becomes religious, Jay gets another girlfriend, Jay plays with a ouija board, Jay plays with crystals, Jay joins the debate team -- you know, typical teen stuff. Except, oh yeah Jay learns to levitate things (he does this a lot in the book), uses PCP, has his girlfriend cut her fingers and bleed into his mouth and call him "master," practices hexes and voodoo, sacrifices animals, gets married, has a demon named "Raul" haunting him, and watches his friends die as they try to turn their backs on Satan! Rereading Jay's Journal made me feel like Sparks had some serious problems with editing, as each scene is just one over the top moment over the next. And let's not forget the poetry scattered throughout:
Golly Gee I'm glad I'm me/There's no one else I'd rather be./I smile on every bird and tree./Life is a ball. I'm in love with me!/And the music is great too!
Uh, yeah. Reportedly, the book is based on a real teen who did commit suicide and had a diary, but only 25 of the total 221 entries are from his diary, and none of them were about the occult, which he wasn't into. RUH ROH! Sparks filled in the rest herself based on experiences working with other teens, while she didn't bother changing enough details so that people recognized the real teen and terrorized his Utah family. The book has been described as a "Mormon Horror Fiction" because Sparks the book uses church scare tactics to serve as a cautionary tale. Apparently she didn't stop there, her other titles include: It Happened to Nancy (she's dying of AIDS), Annie's Baby: The Diary of Anonymous, a Pregnant Teenager, Treacherous Love: The Diary of an Anonymous Teenager (teen gets involved with her teacher), Kim: Empty Inside: The Diary of an Anonymous Teenager (eating disorders). "Dr." Sparks was sure lucky she kept coming across all these troubled teen diaries!
On the scale of Satanic Teen Fun, I would rank Jay's Journal's spook factor higher than any of the Harry Potter series or listening to KISS records, but less than watching Paranormal Activity or saying "Bloody Mary" 13 times in front of a mirror. Recommended for 11 or 12-year-olds who like wearing metal t-shirts to school and flipping off their gym teacher.

Kids books where the beloved pet dies

I picked up this title from our donation bin, where someone had donated a bunch of 1960's children's chapter books. Jenny Lind and Her Listening Cat looked cute enough, but it turned out to be one of those kids books where the beloved pet dies.
The back cover provides the best summary: "Jenny is so lonely. Her mother is too busy to take care of her, and her father is almost never home. That's why she must live with strangers. One day the lonely girl finds a cat. Jenny loves to sing, and now she has someone to sing to. Her cat listens to her beautiful voice. And so do others. Then one day someone very special hears her sing."
Spoiler alert: the very special someone isn't her cat, because the poor thing dies less than half way through. Jenny lives a miserable existence, even compared to 60's kids without their cable tv. Her mother shames her about her singing and then convinces Jenny's dad that they should give their daughter away to neighbors. At this point, Jenny has spent the majority of the book crying and the only silver lining appears in the form of a stray kitten that Jenny adopts and names "Kissy-Cat." Things seem to be looking up for Jenny and her new music career when, of course, Kissy-Cat kicks the kitty bucket. Jenny is sad, but then she's on her way to becoming Sweden's biggest singing star and a national hero. The story concludes with noting that it is a fictionalization of a true story.
Kissy-Cat's death is almost mentioned as an "oh yeah, we need to end that storyline" afterthought so it is not as emotionally crushing as it is annoying because the cat is mentioned in the title -- and who kills off a title character?! Naturally, the cat can't live forever and it is supposedly based on the true story of Jenny Lind, but then why get kids all excited to read a story about animals? Why not just call it The Story of Jenny Lind or Don't Get Too Attached to That Cat.
On the scale of books that scar children forever, Jenny Lind and Her Listening Cat doesn't even come close to Old Yeller or The Yearling, but is worse than say Henry and Ribsy where at least the pet gets to live. Recommended for: people who like to gently sob into their pillow while denying that they're crying because it's probably just something in their eye, ok?!