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Jul. 19th, 2010 11:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsOkay, I am pretty sure that everyone and their sister read Zilpha Keatley Snyder's The Eygpt Game when they were little. But has anyone else read Libby on Wednesday? This was one of my favorite of her books when I was little; I reread it last week in a fit of nostalgia and it actually held up surprisingly well.
Libby on Wednesday is basically The Breakfast Club for writing geeks, except I liked it a lot better than I ever liked The Breakfast Club, which I never imprinted on. Libby, the main character, is an undersized overachiever and the granddaughter of a Local Famous Writer who's now going to public middle school after being homeschooled most of her life by her eccentric family. Predictably, she is miserable. When she wins a writing contest, and gets assigned to attend a weekly writing workshop with the other winners and runner-ups from her school, she's extra-miserable; the prospect of having four horrible classmates critiquing her magnum opus, an AU Roman-era fantasy novel, is basically the end of the world.
No one who has ever read a book before will be surprised to find out that Libby and her four horrible classmates eventually end up bonding in unexpected ways. And it could be considered a bit of a Problem Novel - one of the kids has a semi-invisible disability, one of the kids has problems with abuse at home, and so on. The kids are definitely not just the Sum Of Their Issues, though. They all feel enormously real, and so does their writing, which is so very the writing of talented middle-schoolers. Tierney is large and stompy and pink-haired (which Libby is hilariously shocked by, because in a lot of ways Libby is more of a sixty-year-old woman than a twelve-year-old) and writes hard-boiled noir pastiches. Wendy is a cheerful and constantly smiley valedictorian type who writes slightly boring stories about Teenaged Girls Learning Important Lessons About Understanding. G.G. is a bully with anger issues who writes extremely violent sci-fi or inexplicably creepy mood pieces. Alex is the brilliant and awkward one who's clever and witty but sometimes has trouble letting other people get a word in edgewise; he insta-filks in class and writes parodies of Stephen King and Watership Down. (Did I ship Alex/Libby when I was twelve? Maybe a little. But I also shipped Nita/Ed the shark when I was twelve, so you are free to judge my taste.)
I have totally basically been in writing workshops with all of these kids. I totally know Tierneys and Wendys and G.G.s, and oh man, do I know Alexes. So I guess it is no surprise that I get warm fuzzy feelings of nostalgia when reading this book, as well as thinking it does a decent job with a lot of the issues (though it is kind of annoying that all the kids are white, especially since it takes place in California.) The other thing I remembered as being awesome that still was totally awesome was Libby's collections. Because Libby lives in a ginormous old house, she has a bunch of rooms to herself, and one of them is entirely dedicated to Oregon Trail and one of them is entirely dedicated to the thirties and so on. I wanted space to do this so badly when I was little, let me tell you.
Something I did not remember from when I was twelve: Libby's family is composed of her grandmother and great-aunt, her father, her father's male friend who moved in years ago and stayed, and a mostly-absent mother who is still "very good friends" with her father. Libby worries a lot about trying to explain this setup to people. I had no idea what was going on there when I was little, which strikes me as fairly obtuse now seeing as there was a similar situation going on at the time within my extended family. Way to be observant, small self!
Libby on Wednesday is basically The Breakfast Club for writing geeks, except I liked it a lot better than I ever liked The Breakfast Club, which I never imprinted on. Libby, the main character, is an undersized overachiever and the granddaughter of a Local Famous Writer who's now going to public middle school after being homeschooled most of her life by her eccentric family. Predictably, she is miserable. When she wins a writing contest, and gets assigned to attend a weekly writing workshop with the other winners and runner-ups from her school, she's extra-miserable; the prospect of having four horrible classmates critiquing her magnum opus, an AU Roman-era fantasy novel, is basically the end of the world.
No one who has ever read a book before will be surprised to find out that Libby and her four horrible classmates eventually end up bonding in unexpected ways. And it could be considered a bit of a Problem Novel - one of the kids has a semi-invisible disability, one of the kids has problems with abuse at home, and so on. The kids are definitely not just the Sum Of Their Issues, though. They all feel enormously real, and so does their writing, which is so very the writing of talented middle-schoolers. Tierney is large and stompy and pink-haired (which Libby is hilariously shocked by, because in a lot of ways Libby is more of a sixty-year-old woman than a twelve-year-old) and writes hard-boiled noir pastiches. Wendy is a cheerful and constantly smiley valedictorian type who writes slightly boring stories about Teenaged Girls Learning Important Lessons About Understanding. G.G. is a bully with anger issues who writes extremely violent sci-fi or inexplicably creepy mood pieces. Alex is the brilliant and awkward one who's clever and witty but sometimes has trouble letting other people get a word in edgewise; he insta-filks in class and writes parodies of Stephen King and Watership Down. (Did I ship Alex/Libby when I was twelve? Maybe a little. But I also shipped Nita/Ed the shark when I was twelve, so you are free to judge my taste.)
I have totally basically been in writing workshops with all of these kids. I totally know Tierneys and Wendys and G.G.s, and oh man, do I know Alexes. So I guess it is no surprise that I get warm fuzzy feelings of nostalgia when reading this book, as well as thinking it does a decent job with a lot of the issues (though it is kind of annoying that all the kids are white, especially since it takes place in California.) The other thing I remembered as being awesome that still was totally awesome was Libby's collections. Because Libby lives in a ginormous old house, she has a bunch of rooms to herself, and one of them is entirely dedicated to Oregon Trail and one of them is entirely dedicated to the thirties and so on. I wanted space to do this so badly when I was little, let me tell you.
Something I did not remember from when I was twelve: Libby's family is composed of her grandmother and great-aunt, her father, her father's male friend who moved in years ago and stayed, and a mostly-absent mother who is still "very good friends" with her father. Libby worries a lot about trying to explain this setup to people. I had no idea what was going on there when I was little, which strikes me as fairly obtuse now seeing as there was a similar situation going on at the time within my extended family. Way to be observant, small self!
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Date: 2010-07-19 04:38 pm (UTC)You have literally made my world better, because I am going to go rent it NOW.
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Date: 2010-07-19 04:58 pm (UTC)(Also, there are so many books I have vague memories of reading when I was a kid, and would like to reread, but cannot remember anything about except their location on the library shelves. And then the library moved their shelves around! AND NOW THEY'RE LOST FOREVER. ;_;)
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Date: 2010-07-19 05:03 pm (UTC)I'm like, "There's this one... and I think it's 'Roxanne' or 'Rosanne' and it's set in 1950's Hollywood..." And that's all I remember.
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Date: 2010-07-19 05:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-19 05:47 pm (UTC)And then goes to a costume party dressed as a moth?
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Date: 2010-07-19 06:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-19 06:36 pm (UTC)Is it this one?
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Date: 2010-07-19 06:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-19 06:57 pm (UTC)But was that the right one, do you think?
The reviews are pretty harsh. Apparently it wouldn't hold up well i I read it again...
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Date: 2010-07-19 07:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-28 07:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-20 06:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-20 01:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-20 02:19 pm (UTC)Thank you, anon!