Shelf Discovery: The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading (edition 2009)

Other reviews detail the typos, homophones, and flat out errors sprinkled liberally throughout this book. I won't dwell on them here other than to say that they really detracted from the reading experience. I never know if the author or the editor should be held accountable, but either way it's inexcusable- especially in a book about books the author ostensibly loves and reveres.

I read the majority of these books as a kid (with the exception of the scary ones, and the dreck like V.C. Andrews) and remember them fondly. It was interesting to read another perspective on them, even when I didn't agree. I never found Frank Gilbreth abusive, for instance, rather a man of difficult genius.

The book suffered, in my opinion, from what I think of as "Cosmo syndrome" wherein MANY words are CAPITALIZED or italicized for emphasis and Other. Annoying. Punctuation. Devices are used. Gah! OMG ZACHARY GRAY!

Interesting as a trip down memory lane, for sure. ( )

I'm about halfway through this (it's a hard book to read cover-to-cover, straight through) and frankly I'm a little disappointed in it. I don't know what I was looking for, exactly--insightful essays about the cultural significance of each title, maybe?--but this isn't it. Mostly each entry reads as a lengthy plot synopsis, though written with snark and affection in roughly equal measures. When they entries are on books you also know and love, you don't really notice the detailed plot so much (it's almost like talking to a friend about books you both loved), but the straight synopsis becomes really obvious when you hit a string of books you've never read.

It may pick up. It's fun enough, but it's not going to stick with me. It's nice to know that other people loved these books, too (even the dumb ones) (uh, the dumb books, that is, not that dumb people loved these, though maybe they did), but there's not a whole lot here.

**Now that I'm finished: I think what's not really doing it for me is that this book is subtitled "A reading memoir," and yet doesn't have all that much content I'd consider memoir-ish. So it's not really what I was expecting--the personal content to it is mostly "man, I loved this book" without a whole lot of information beyond that.

Overall: it's okay, and worth a skim from pretty much any readers who are around my age (there are definitely some titles here you'll recognize, and agree with any snarking comments Skurnick makes), but it's not something I'd catapult to the top of your to-read list. ( )

Skurnick, Lizzie

Shelf Discovery: The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading
2009. 448pp. $14.99 pbk. HarperCollins Publishers. 978-0-0617-5635-1. Grades 9-12.

Despite the subtitle "The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading," this book mainly profiles children's and young adult books written in the 1960s and 1970s and read by the authors when they were younger. The short profiles of young adult and children's novels by Lois Duncan, Judy Blume, and others will appeal to teens or children whose young adult reading interests are wide and varied. Though teen readers invested only in the newest books may express limited interest, adult readers who read young adult books in the same era as the authors may also be intrigued by writers’ depictions of their own reading experiences when they were children and teens. The descriptions of various young adult books may remind readers of books they read when younger, or may compel them to seek out earlier young adult titles they have not yet read. Recommended for bibliophiles who want a nostalgic look back at young adult literature in an earlier era. ( )

This book was a fun early summer read...Skurnick managed to love many of the same books I did...the ones we never studied in adolescent lit. and often have forgotten about but that we loved for a time (and many that were truly weird). It seems there are a few that were too racy for the Waldenbooks at my local mall, but there are many more that I read and reread...and now I look back and think, "They really let us read that stuff?" She got it all in here...from "The Great Brain" to "My Sweet Audrina". ( )

This is a book of essays about old YA lit from the 60's and 70's. It's kind of like a trip down memory lane with a girlfriend who loved much of the same books you did, dissecting their appeal, the underlying messages, and how freaky some of them were (Flowers in the Attic? what the heck?). Fun book. Points off for occasional poor copy editing, and a lack of a slightly deeper more academic & interrelated look at the books, but for humorous nostalgia it's great. ( )