Recently decided to re-read a bunch of juvenile/young adult books that I read when I was a kid. This thread will contain my thoughts on them as I go along. Most were published in the very early 2000s or earlier, as around 2003-2004 is when I started reading adult fiction exclusively. If you read and remember any of these, share your thoughts.
100 Pounds of Popcorn - Hazel Krantz, 1961I was always interested in stories about kids running their own businesses which is probably why I read this one, despite it being obviously dated by the time I came along. With character names like Sally-Jean and illustrations of freckle-faced lads and crew cut dads with pipes parked in their gobs it was clear to 1990s me that this book was from a different era. The story is short and simple - a boy named Andy comes across a 100 pound bag of popcorn and decides to sell it for 10 cents a bag. Early on he figures he can make around $112 in profit (about $1200 today). The bulk of the story is how he and his friends market and sell the popcorn and how the $112 he envisioned earning quickly dwindles (needing to buy butter and oil, profit sharing with friends, etc). At the end he's earned $9 profit (around $100 today). It's nothing amazing but its a quick enjoyable read and I think even kids today would like it if they had any interest in business.
The Eyes of Kid Midas - Neal Shusterman, 199212 year old Kevin Midas finds a pair of sunglasses that give him near God-like powers - anything he can envision happens, anything he wants can be his.Of course there are drawbacks - things created by the glasses can't be destroyed, and he experiences drug-like withdrawals if he takes them off. The glasses take his commands literally - when he tells a bully to "go to Hell" the ground opens around the bully's feet and tentacles drag him down into a fiery pit. Reality starts to break down as the laws of the universe change to accommodate some of his wishes.This is dark fantasy for kids. I liked this one a lot when I first read it and it holds up fairly well - re-reading it as an adult, I think the author was stuck for an ending as what we get feels rushed. There's other things I appreciated more as an adult - after Kevin and his friend spend a day wishing for whatever they wanted they end up with a house full of video games, stereo systems, pinball machines, and all sorts of other things, they very quickly become bored with having everything and decide the secret is to only wish for a few things you really want at a time and to space out the wishes. The copy I read as a kid proclaimed it was in development as a major motion picture - a project which never materialized. It's too bad as I think in the right hands and with a big enough effects budget it could have been good.
Wilted / You've Seen Enough - Paul Kropp 1980 / 1991I read this one as You've Seen Enough, published in 1991. When looking for a copy for a re-read I learned that it had been originally published in 1980 under the title Wilted. In my re-read I looked at both versions. The story is completely the same, but there are a few changes which we'll get to. 14 year old Danny has poor family with parents on the brink of divorce, and to make things worse, at the beginning of the book he's informed that he needs glasses. Is making fun of people with glasses still a thing? Most kids media from the 70s through the 90s treated being told you need glasses as roughly the equivalent of being told your dick was going to rot off. I feel like the glasses hate probably died sometime in the 2000s with the massive wave of glasses fetishism, can anyone younger confirm?Anyways, its a basic coming of age, first romance story from a boys perspective. Danny begins to date Sam, an attractive girl in his class, and we join Danny on his first date and his first time squeezing a titty. While it may be tempting to write this off as nerd wish fulfilment - dorky guy gets the hot girl - its believable here as Danny isn't really a dork, he just wears glasses. He's a nice guy, but also kind of a sarcastic asshole at times. It makes him more believable as a character and more believable that he got the girl. So, besides the titles what are the changes? The biggest is that You've Seen Enough gives Sam more of a character. On paper this is good, but the end result is that You've Seen comes across as more of an idealized teen romance. In Wilted we get the feeling that Sam is dating Danny because she likes him and finds him interesting, but we never get the feeling that its true love or that the end result will be Danny and Sam getting married a few years down the line. You've Seen makes her seem more head over heels in love with Danny which in the end makes the whole thing more generic and cliched. There's a few other interesting minor changes. Wilted was done by an American publisher, You've Seen by a Canadian, so the setting changes from "generic small town America" to "generic small town Canada". The other notable change is pretty funny - in Wilted, Danny wonders if he should offer to carry Sam's books when they walk home from school together, thinking that if she's liberated then the offer will piss her off. In You've Seen he simply doesn't make the offer. I enjoyed this one, both as a kid and an adult, but I think Wilted is the superior version.
Harriet The Spy - Louise Fitzhugh, 1964Most people these days probably remember the movie more than the book. I have only vague memories of the movie which I never had much interest in. I had a very weak stomach when I was younger and the combination of Harriet's gross tomato and mayonnaise sandwiches and Rosie O'Donnell was enough to put me off my feed for a few days. The book I remembered better, or at least though I did until I re-read it.I'll start with a compliment: It's well written and keeps you reading and wanting to see what happens next. The bad, which I either didn't pick up on or didn't remember, is that Harriet is a piece of shit. I don't need or want protagonists to always be morally good, but Harriet is pretty irredeemable, and what's more, the narrative and most of the characters indulge her.If you're not familiar with the story, a young rich girl in 1960s New York City wants to be a spy. She has a spy route - various people she spies on in her neighbourhood - and carries her notebook everywhere, in which she records her observations about the people she spies on, as well as her friends and anyone else she comes across. Her parents are the 1960s equivalent of yuppies who largely shunt off the care and raising of Harriet to her live-in nanny, Ole Golly. As the story develops Ole Golly gets married and leaves Harriet, and her friends find and read her notebook, which includes many unkind observations about them, resulting in Harriet's ostracization. The book treats her friends as morally wrong for reading her notebook - fair enough. But Harriet can't bring herself to apologize for the horrible things she wrote about them since in her eyes she was just being honest. She eventually writes Ole Golly for advice, and her reply amounts to "just lie lol." So Harriet issues an incredibly half-assed and self-aggrandizing apology and then all is well. She also becomes a writer for the school newspaper and writes about things like faculty members getting shithouse drunk at parties and student's parents having affairs and none of the adults seem to care for some reason. Because she's Harriet, the genius spy writer I guess. It ends up feeling like an author self-insert and not in any good way. There's also some weird snobbery about public schools - cause everyone should have rich parents am I right folks? Did not enjoy this re-read.
