Paula Danziger (1944–2004)

I read this so often when I was ages seven through nine that the cover warped. Even as an adult--I can understand it much better, but -damn- it is still my childhood. My mom really was president of the PTA, but had three kids under the age of ten, and was a waitress until she started working at an elementary school. The dad in this book? Easily my dad. It took hours and hours for me to calm down after I finished. The author describes him in an afterward as tyrannical. Yes, and show more psychologically abusive hinting towards physical, and--oh, I just freakin' hated him. But I remember hiding this book from my dad because I was worried he'd realize he was the book-dad, and I didn't want him to hit me. I remember being so grateful and so scared when my mom read this out loud, the times she did, because surely she would realize she was the book-mom. And now that I'm an adult--I'm so, so glad I had this book as a kid. I'm so glad it's still in circulation, and so widely respected. show less

The sequel to Remember Me To Harold Square. Kendra and Frank go on holiday to London with the rest of their families. To be honest, a lot of this book left me very DTMFA about Frank, Kendra wants to enjoy museums of art, and Frank and the ten year old boys are all 'boring!' in a very irritating way. But they learn how to compromise, how to do things together and apart, and how to ask the grown ups to change things that aren't working and treat them as people.

This is a sequel to The Cat Ate My Gymsuit, except it's sort of not. Marcy goes away to camp, so most of the characters and relationships from the first book aren't really present in this one. Marcy's over-the-top evil Dad has mellowed a lot, and also had an off-screen heart attack which he survived, so now everyone dotes on him a bit more. Joel, who let's face it was one of the best bits of the first book, has just moved to a totally different state and is now nothing to do with Marcy's show more life, and Marcy herself is now a slim hot boy-magnet.

I don't know much about how Americans run summer camps still, but to a modern British readership having a pile of hormonal underage teenagers responsible for the welfare of a huge group of younger kids sounds like the sort of thing that just Wouldn't Be Allowed nowadays! Especially the (very mild) flirtatious banter between the kids in staff roles and the campers.

The most interesting bit of this book is the story of Ginger, who is outrageously caricaturishly awful to everyone, damaging their musical instruments, poisoning them so they need two days in the sick bay, being racist, etc etc. You sort of assume in an easy reading young adult book the plot is going to be 'actually it wasn't really Ginger doing all the bad stuff, you blamed her unfairly' or 'by being loved at summer camp Ginger grew as a person'. But actually we end up with 'Ginger is just unfixable, don't blame yourself too much, some people are just beyond the help we can offer', which, err, is probably true, but isn't the warm fuzzy end of book note I was expecting

The romance is a little uninspiring, they are all over each other when they've only known each other one day (although summer camp, things do move fast), and the chat up lines from the boys are totally cheesy verging into sleezy. I know 'communication is hard' is the staple of high school romance drama, but the total acceptance that you can make out in the uncomfortable front of the car, but if you go onto the back seat that is definitely consenting to sex is just ridiculous! Like, couldn't they use their words and say 'I'm really enjoying this, the back seat would be much more comfortable, but I don't want to go any further than this right now'?

It was interesting to realise that Ms Finney and Marcy are both in some ways the author writing parts of herself into characters, and when they talk about how they are similar that all felt very meta!

Also my copy has a hilarious introduction going 'hey! In England bats don't have rabies and it's illegal to kill them! Especially by hitting them with a broom!'
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Marcy Lewis is fat, with an angry and controlling father. Then she gets a joyful English teacher who makes her life better. Then the English teacher gets suspended from school, and Marcy has to work out how much she follows her father's 'toe the line and don't stand out' orders, and how much she wants to stand up for what she believes.

It is hard to place why I liked Paula Danziger, but I think some of it is that she really captures the sense that school is often a controlling place where show more justice is not served, and that brave people can stand up to this if they are prepared to suffer the consequences. show less