(no subject)

[skygiants]

osprey_archer mentioned Paperback Crush: The Totally Radical History of 80s and 90s Fiction a few weeks back, so I picked it up on the assumption that it would be a good light nonfiction read for a recent beach trip.

And indeed it was, and I enjoyed the survey view of the era and the nostalgia hit of flipping through endless Sweet Valley High and Babysitters Club covers very much, while also very deeply craving a much more substantive and academic exploration of late-twentieth-century children's fiction -- sure, Sweet Valley High kicked off a landslide of Soap Opera Twin Story imitators, I'm glad to know this, but why was it so popular? Why and how did it cover the plotlines that it did? LET'S DIG, LET'S GET IN IT.

This book covers a lot of the broad trends, but doesn't really get in it at more than surface level. It also completely skips the categories that were most significant to me, fantasy and historical fiction, except where they overlap with the ones she's more interested in, Teen Romance and Teen Horror -- I realize the Harry Potter boom didn't happen until the early two thousands, but there were kid fantasy novels being published before then, and I read ALL of them. The boundary line in this book between what counts as 'teen' and 'kid' lit is is kind of fuzzy too and I think the definitions really depend on what Gabrielle Moss felt like writing about at the time. (For example, no American Girls, but a loving full-page spread on Wait Til Helen Comes which -- great book! Well worth calling out! NOT teen fiction, definitely a children's book.)

All that said, I learned several extremely important things from this book:

- there existed a Preteen Friends series (a la Babysitter's Club) called the B.Y. Times about a group of Orthodox Jewish girls who wrote for their school newspaper -- how did I not know about this! why have I not read all of them!
- there also existed a whole series called Swept Away, by Eileen Goudge, about teen girls who have a TIME TRAVEL CLUB (with a machine they stole from their local library! makerspaces, man) and are constantly zooming backwards to fix the love lives of Teen Girls From The Past; why did I not ALSO read all of these?
- noted horror author R.L. Stine also wrote joke books! ... under the name JOVIAL BOB Stine. I don't know why this is the funniest thing I've heard all week but every time I remember it I start laughing. Jovial Bob!
- Lois Duncan, who wrote all those teen horror and suspense books about teens and mysteries and murder ... stopped writing suspense novels after her ACTUAL teen daughter was mysteriously murdered, and instead wrote a true crime novel titled Who Killed My Daughter? based on her private investigation involving gangs and psychics! This is very sad, but also, good lord, talk about art imitating life
- on a lighter note, one last 'why didn't I read this': Samantha Slade, Monster-Sitter, "for the Goosebumps reader who wanted more babysitting, or the BSC reader who wanted more lycanthropy." I WAS BOTH THOSE THINGS. WHERE WAS I.

Anyway, now I have to go nosedive into all the Sweet Valley summaries written by dedicated scholar 1bruce1, still apparently valiantly trucking away on Livejournal after all this time.

Comments

[osprey_archer]

I felt kind of bad about wanting more from the book, because there's already so much there! And if it got more in-depth, it would probably be 800 pages! Which would not be suitable for a vacation read! But at the same time I did want it to be way more in depth about certain things. Like, maybe just iris in on the Sweet Valley books? I didn't actually read those in my youth, but the author clearly loved them and I would have loved reading an in-depth exploration of what made them so popular.

Wait Till Helen Comes was such a bizarre book to include. I mean, it's a great book! But not for teens, and also it was a standalone, not a series book. Maybe Moss just loved it so much she couldn't bear to leave it out.

[conuly]

I mean, BSC wasn't really for teens either?

[skygiants]

I WANT ALL EIGHT HUNDRED PAGES THOUGH. I mean, no shade on Gabrielle Moss, who was gamely tackling a VERY broad topic, but there's so much there there to be explored!

There were a bunch of standalones she went into, and I was never quite sure whether it was because she thought they illustrated a particular point very well even though they weren't series books, or because she just really loved them and wanted an excuse to recap the plot. Or both!

[afrikate]

There’s a whole podcast dedicated to Sweet Valley High called Double Love. I haven’t listened to it Be I listened them interviewed on the Smart Bitches, Trashy Books podcast, and it sounded delightful.

[skygiants]

I'm glad to hear that exists because it is FOR SURE a rich vein of material. So many books! Each more bonkers than the last!

[kore]

JOVIAL BOB??

Kaitlyn Arquette's murder was really sad. I remember hearing about it because it happened in ABQ when I lived in NM. It seemed to permanently throw Lois Duncan, understandably so.

[skygiants]

JOVIAL BOB!!!

Yeah, I can imagine that's an impossibly hard thing to come back from in any case, but especially when you've spent so much of your time living in that fictional place and suddenly it's real - I can't imagine wanting to go back to it.

[silveronthetree]

I cannot believe 1bruce1 is still going!!! Such dedication. I remember back reading most of it in search of some of my favourites one summer (I assume it was the summer).

I should definitely try the book. It sounds fascinating.

[skygiants]

Me neither! I went back honestly expecting to find it long deleted, and instead! a treasure trove!

[sdelmonte]

Pretty sure I saw the BY Times books in the Jewish bookstores. Gotta ask Batya if she is familiar with them.

[skygiants]

Please do! This author seemed to think they're not available anywhere but surely SOMEONE must have copies.

[kalloway]

I had at least one of Jovial Bob Stine's books and yet I never made the connection. *__* MY MIND IS BLOWN. (Also, it was hilarious, but since it didn't turn up while cleaning books out of the 'rents house, it is likely Gone Forever.)

And seeing Wait Til Helen Comes just made me go AUGH somewhere deep in my hindbrain, so while I don't remember anything about it, I apparently read it and AUGH. *off to google a summary*

ETA: Oh, two lines into the summary, the rest of Helen came right back. Yup. Yuuuup.

[skygiants]

A sad factoid: he's quoted wistfully in the book as saying, "I never wanted to be scary. I always wanted to be funny." Sorry you were just too good at horror, Mr. Stine!

Wait Til Helen Comes left a VERY DEEP impression on me. (And they made a movie in 2016! It's ... very much a made-for-TV kids horror movie ... but charming in its own way!)

[lizbee]

I really enjoyed that book! It was, as you say, shallow -- I felt like I was reading a blog -- but I also walked away with a pile of authors and series to investigate.

(I also felt like, someone is going to read this and be inspired to do a PhD on the subject, and THEN we'll get the in-depth version.)

[conuly]

THAT is something to hope for.

[conuly]

- there existed a Preteen Friends series (a la Babysitter's Club) called the B.Y. Times about a group of Orthodox Jewish girls who wrote for their school newspaper -- how did I not know about this! why have I not read all of them!

She also wrote a kidlit series - think BSC Little Sister for the age range - about a family with twelve adopted kids. Short lived series, not very well promoted, not very well *written*, but somehow I managed to keep one of the books for quite a long time before discarding it.

[skygiants]

HOW DID I NEVER DISCOVER THIS WOMAN

[landofnowhere]

I heard about the B.Y. times when Mara Wilson wrote about it for The Toast!

[skygiants]

Apparently that is also where Gabrielle Moss learned about them!

[sovay]

the B.Y. Times about a group of Orthodox Jewish girls who wrote for their school newspaper -- how did I not know about this! why have I not read all of them!

PLEASE REPORT BACK.

(This looks otherwise like an interesting survey of many genres I did not read.)

[skygiants]

According to Mara Wilson, they are nearly impossible to find, but it means I have a new used bookstore quest for sure!

(I read the Babysitters Club, and some Sweet Valley High when my parents tried to encourage me to read more non-fantasy fiction; I'd trot home with my token Wakefield book on a pile of ten fantasy novels and call it good enough. But a lot of this was, for me, 'oh, that's what that book was about that I always saw in the library but never read because it looked kind of boring!')

[rachelindeed]

Ah, Wait Till Helen Comes. It was my favorite book around 3rd to 4th grade, and I'll never forget how excited I was when Mary Downing Hahn *came to visit our school* and talk about her books. I was utterly ecstatic and she must have seen my over-the-top enthusiasm with fondness, because I remember she gave me a hug and said she was so glad I loved the book.

One of my favorite series as a kid in the 80s was Secret of the Unicorn Queen, which as I recall had a rather Back to the Future-esque framing device with an eccentric scientist and an alternate universe machine portal. And also unicorns and evil wizards that our heroine fought using the random objects that had been in her backpack when she fell into the Alternate Universe, including a flashlight and a Walkman with Bon Jovi on it :)

[skygiants]

I was a little obsessed with it too, but I never got to meet Mary Downing Hahn! It's been on my mind lately, too, since shati and I discovered the recent TV movie version ...

This sounds vaguely familiar! Was Secret of the Unicorn Queen Bruce Coville, or am I mixing that up with another set of unicorn books?

[pedanther]

If memory serves, Jovial Bob Stine is the credited author of the Ghostbusters II tie-in picture book, which would have been the first of Stine's books that I read. He'd started writing R.L. Stine novels by then, but I guess they felt Jovial Bob was a better match for the material.

(Hey, remember the days when every big movie got not only a novelisation but also a tie-in picture book With Actual Photos From The Movie? I think the last time I remember seeing that happen was the first Avengers movie -- that was an interesting one, the picture book only adapted the first half of the movie and stopped at the point where they caught Loki the first time.)

Oh, wait, maybe that wasn't my first. I just did a Google search and there are a couple more of Jovial Bob's books that also look familiar, I just hadn't remembered he wrote them. Man, I haven't thought about Miami Mice in decades...

[skygiants]

I had never heard the name Jovial Bob before reading this book and now I emphatically feel like I missed out!

[vass]

- on a lighter note, one last 'why didn't I read this': Samantha Slade, Monster-Sitter, "for the Goosebumps reader who wanted more babysitting, or the BSC reader who wanted more lycanthropy." I WAS BOTH THOSE THINGS. WHERE WAS I.

That sounds like an AWESOME video game waiting to happen.

[skygiants]

I'd absolutely play it!

[aria]

I cannot BELIEVE that I also didn't read the Jewish newspaper girls or the time traveling love life girls or the BSC with lycanthropy one!! ALL OF THOSE SOUND DIRECTLY UP MY ALLEY.

[skygiants]

Miranda hates history! Her college-professor father spends so much time reading and talking about the Middle Ages that she sometimes feels as if she's living in another century. Miranda tries her best to be mod - TV, rock music, parties, and discos. The only thing missing is the Perfect Boyfriend. Modern guys just don't make it compared to old-fashioned knights in shining armor!

Then one day Miranda accidently hooks into her friend Ashley's computer via the modem. All of a sudden weird lights appear and spill off the screen. Moments later, Miranda and Ashley are back in the times of King Arthur. Bt they've been arrested - about to be put to death! Just in time, a real-live knight comes to their rescue. He's handsome, exciting - and so chivalrous. The Perfect Boyfriend - until he travels back with her to the 1980's. And Miranda finds out just how out of place chivalry can be in the 20th century!

Ari I'm going to read ALL OF THESE

[littlerhymes]

teen girls who have a TIME TRAVEL CLUB (with a machine they stole from their local library!

I'M UPSET I NEVER READ THIS!!!

[skygiants]

ME ONE THOUSAND PERCENT TOO

[nevanna]

I enjoyed Paperback Crush too, but I didn't realize the lack of attention to the fantasy genre until you pointed it out! I would have liked at least a nod to Tamora Pierce, although the Tortall Recall podcast is as deep a dive into those books as I could hope for.

[skygiants]

Yeah, there were a ton of series fantasy books that were big in the eighties and nineties! Tortall, Redwall, the Dark is Rising, Bruce Coville's Magic Shop and Alien books (aimed young, but no younger than Goosebumps or Babysitters Club) -- it was a good time for kid's sff.

[tempestsarekind]

...oh my gracious, I must have read the Samantha Slade books! At least the first two (whose titles sound vaguely familiar from Google), although I remember nothing about them and had completely forgotten their existence until now.

I read a decent number of BSC books, but the only ones I really, really liked were the Super Specials, I think because the regular ones were too short. (I was also deeply fond of this Sweet Valley High book that was essentially a bunch of short stories about Wakefields of the Past - like one girl (named Jessamyn, I think???) who was a trick horseback rider for a circus or a rodeo or something, and one chapter that was a romance with the 1906 San Fransisco earthquake as a backdrop...)

[skygiants]

Yeah, I remember liking the Super Specials better too! Although goodness knows I couldn't describe any of them to you now.

I never read that Sweet Valley High book but I DID just reread an extremely thorough recap, which honestly was probably a better experience!

[kore]

I finally read this (because it was on sale for the Kindle at $1.99) and what surprised me most was not just that she blipped over some really formative YA fantasy (Robin McKinley, Diana Wynne Jones, Tamora Pierce, Tanith Lee, I could go on) (Anne McCaffrey, Mercedes Lackey, Susan Dexter, Diane Duane, Robin Hobb? -- ok I'll stop I will). (Madeleine L'Engle was still going then too!) She also went right past the authors who continued the "problem books" of the 1970s, but more realistically -- Paula Danziger, Cynthia Voigt, Gary Paulsen, and most glaringly, M.E. KERR. I don't see how anyone can write a history of 80s fiction and leave out Kerr (Night Kites was either the first or one of the first YA books to deal with HIV/AIDS, in 1986, especially without ending in tragic death). Not to mention that was when Ender's Game exploded, which is thirty-two flavours and then some of problematic now, but is still a huge influence in YA and adult scifi.

I mean, it was fun? But it seemed directed at a pretty narrow audience -- Babysitter's Club, Sweet Valley High, Goosebumps, Sweet Dreams, &c &c, maybe a little Lois Lowry or a few classics. (I was surprised when she included Norma Klein, altho she only mentions Norma Fox Mazer for one book and -- yeah I will stop there. No really.) (And there were a whole ton of anorexia books from the 1980s better than the creepy ones written by the white male shrink who fancied himself a saviour....) Anyway, it was a fun read, but it's kind of sad when one of the best things about a large genre of books is the multitude of different covers.

[kore]

One more little thing, no two more I guess LOL -- there was the Fairy Tale Series by Terri Windling, which wasn't explicitly YA but a lot of young women readers snapped those up, ditto Borderlands and even the Wild Cards Bantam era....and also how can you write about the 90s without heavy devotion to FRANCESCA LIA BLOCK. There now I'm done