those horrible pre-teen book series

So I've been thinking about reading lately, about how I started, what I read, and how it turned into SF/F. Combined with the chance comment of someone online led me to remember...

The Baby-Sitters Club - These are the first books I really remember reading, ever. I was in the 3rd grade and taking piano lessons from an old friend of my mother, who had a daughter slightly older than I was. One day my mom was going to be late picking me up for school, so I was allowed to borrow a book from Joywinn's bookshelves, and I chose a BSC book. About four or five years later, I brought two cardboard boxes full of BSC, super-specials, Baby-Sitters Little Sister, etc books to the final session of the Rocklin All-City Band (note to self: look up Mr. Hannikel) and told the younger girls to go at it. I also remember watching a couple of the HBO mini-series episodes. I wasn't thrilled with it.

Sweet Valley High - I didn't read these nearly as much as I read BSC, but I did read them. I distinctly remember a single plot - the twins were hosting a French exchange student who looked exactly like their older brother's dead (and therefore ex-)girlfriend, which of course caused confusion and drama. I also remember reading and enjoying the two "Sweet Valley Saga" books about their descendents arriving in America. Also, sweetvalley. I'm not kidding you.

The Sleepover Friends - Only bit I remember from this is the black-haired girl who only ever wore clothes that were black, white, and red. Later in life I met flyingindie, who has a similar color scheme most of the time, and it made me smile. :) -- Oh, wait! I remember one more thing. One of the girls in the sleepover club makes a new friend, and they buy matching cardigans together. Something like one of them is green with blue triangles, and one of them is pink with yellow triangles. This is part of the change that the girl makes to please her new friend, and it makes the other sleepover friends jealous. -- Holy crap, Amazon tells me it's #4, Patti's New Look, and she's wearing a PINK SWEATER WITH YELLOW TRIANGLES ON IT on the cover. That is too creepy. I'm not supposed to have that kind of memory.

Peanut Butter and Jelly - A girl whose nickname is Peanut makes friends with a girl named Jilly. Hilarity ensues.

The Saddle Club - I stole these from my little sister, who had much more of the horse fetish than I ever did. I remember when the three main characters were asked to be models for equestrian products and were very excited, but it turned out the most of their bodies that ever showed in the pictures were their hands holding bridles and bits and their knees while wearing riding boots. Turns out a TV show was made from these.

Double Trouble / Triple Trouble - The adventures of identical twins, OR sometimes the adventures of the twins and their identical cousin (their mom's brother married their dad's sister, you see.) Triple Trouble plot: Their cousin is a commercial actress in LA, vying for a spot in a commercial that involves singing a jingle and doing a backflip. It turns out the two twins are good in, individually, sports and singing. The three of them attempt to swap out places so that the cousin does the acting bit, the sporty twin does the backflip, and the musical twin does the singing. This does not, of course, work. (Googling leads me to know that the twins are Sandi and Randi, and therefore I suspect the cousin is Candi. The books were like that.)

The Girl with the Silver Eyes, perhaps my first SF/F book and certainly my first introduction to the fact that what a mother ingests during a pregnancy can alter the fetus! A girl with psychic powers (telekinesis, mostly) tries to figure out why she's special, ultimately discovering it was a pharmaceutical plant her mother worked at during her pregnancy that caused her powers, and discovering the 6ish others who were gestating at that time who also now have special powers.

Bridge to Terabithia, of course. Assumedly everyone knows that a movie version of this has just come out; I went to see it and actually enjoyed it. It was definitely geared for younger folk than I, but was not painful to watch other than for obvious reasons (I was not sorry that I brought a box of tissues into the theater with me.)

I also read but don't remember the names of:

* - Several incredibly depressing pre-teen girls books. Books about girls with cancer or brain tumors, drug and alcohol addictions, things like that. They made Tiger Eyes look happy. One of them was called Six Months to Live and I remember the description of the girl's death at the end of the book (she was asleep and dreamt of getting on a boat and sailing out into the ocean.) -- Amazon tells me I'm wrong, as Six Months to Live is the book about a girl with leukemia. I DID read that one, but the one with the girl dying at the end was about a brain tumor. I remember too many details of it vividly; she was a dancer who collapsed for the first time on the night of a big performance, she had kept a calendar with big black Xs on the days she had particularly bad headaches, etc. Anyway. I remember all of these books as a series, but have no clue how to pin them down like that. Six Months to Live is a part of a series all its own, but doesn't include any brain tumor patients.

* - Some Christopher Pike books, but not enough to ever call myself a fan. I was amused when the movie of "I Know What You Did Last Summer" came out, though.

-----------------------------

All of this was rendered inconsequential after two books happened to me, though: I borrowed Dragonlance: Dragons of Autumn Twilight off of my brother's bookshelf and Dragonflight off of my sixth grade English teacher's bookshelf. Thus was I set along the track. ;)

those horrible pre-teen book series

So I've been thinking about reading lately, about how I started, what I read, and how it turned into SF/F. Combined with the chance comment of someone online led me to remember...

The Baby-Sitters Club - These are the first books I really remember reading, ever. I was in the 3rd grade and taking piano lessons from an old friend of my mother, who had a daughter slightly older than I was. One day my mom was going to be late picking me up for school, so I was allowed to borrow a book from Joywinn's bookshelves, and I chose a BSC book. About four or five years later, I brought two cardboard boxes full of BSC, super-specials, Baby-Sitters Little Sister, etc books to the final session of the Rocklin All-City Band (note to self: look up Mr. Hannikel) and told the younger girls to go at it. I also remember watching a couple of the HBO mini-series episodes. I wasn't thrilled with it.

Sweet Valley High - I didn't read these nearly as much as I read BSC, but I did read them. I distinctly remember a single plot - the twins were hosting a French exchange student who looked exactly like their older brother's dead (and therefore ex-)girlfriend, which of course caused confusion and drama. I also remember reading and enjoying the two "Sweet Valley Saga" books about their descendents arriving in America. Also, sweetvalley. I'm not kidding you.

The Sleepover Friends - Only bit I remember from this is the black-haired girl who only ever wore clothes that were black, white, and red. Later in life I met flyingindie, who has a similar color scheme most of the time, and it made me smile. :) -- Oh, wait! I remember one more thing. One of the girls in the sleepover club makes a new friend, and they buy matching cardigans together. Something like one of them is green with blue triangles, and one of them is pink with yellow triangles. This is part of the change that the girl makes to please her new friend, and it makes the other sleepover friends jealous. -- Holy crap, Amazon tells me it's #4, Patti's New Look, and she's wearing a PINK SWEATER WITH YELLOW TRIANGLES ON IT on the cover. That is too creepy. I'm not supposed to have that kind of memory.

Peanut Butter and Jelly - A girl whose nickname is Peanut makes friends with a girl named Jilly. Hilarity ensues.

The Saddle Club - I stole these from my little sister, who had much more of the horse fetish than I ever did. I remember when the three main characters were asked to be models for equestrian products and were very excited, but it turned out the most of their bodies that ever showed in the pictures were their hands holding bridles and bits and their knees while wearing riding boots. Turns out a TV show was made from these.

Double Trouble / Triple Trouble - The adventures of identical twins, OR sometimes the adventures of the twins and their identical cousin (their mom's brother married their dad's sister, you see.) Triple Trouble plot: Their cousin is a commercial actress in LA, vying for a spot in a commercial that involves singing a jingle and doing a backflip. It turns out the two twins are good in, individually, sports and singing. The three of them attempt to swap out places so that the cousin does the acting bit, the sporty twin does the backflip, and the musical twin does the singing. This does not, of course, work. (Googling leads me to know that the twins are Sandi and Randi, and therefore I suspect the cousin is Candi. The books were like that.)

The Girl with the Silver Eyes, perhaps my first SF/F book and certainly my first introduction to the fact that what a mother ingests during a pregnancy can alter the fetus! A girl with psychic powers (telekinesis, mostly) tries to figure out why she's special, ultimately discovering it was a pharmaceutical plant her mother worked at during her pregnancy that caused her powers, and discovering the 6ish others who were gestating at that time who also now have special powers.

Bridge to Terabithia, of course. Assumedly everyone knows that a movie version of this has just come out; I went to see it and actually enjoyed it. It was definitely geared for younger folk than I, but was not painful to watch other than for obvious reasons (I was not sorry that I brought a box of tissues into the theater with me.)

I also read but don't remember the names of:

* - Several incredibly depressing pre-teen girls books. Books about girls with cancer or brain tumors, drug and alcohol addictions, things like that. They made Tiger Eyes look happy. One of them was called Six Months to Live and I remember the description of the girl's death at the end of the book (she was asleep and dreamt of getting on a boat and sailing out into the ocean.) -- Amazon tells me I'm wrong, as Six Months to Live is the book about a girl with leukemia. I DID read that one, but the one with the girl dying at the end was about a brain tumor. I remember too many details of it vividly; she was a dancer who collapsed for the first time on the night of a big performance, she had kept a calendar with big black Xs on the days she had particularly bad headaches, etc. Anyway. I remember all of these books as a series, but have no clue how to pin them down like that. Six Months to Live is a part of a series all its own, but doesn't include any brain tumor patients.

* - Some Christopher Pike books, but not enough to ever call myself a fan. I was amused when the movie of "I Know What You Did Last Summer" came out, though.

-----------------------------

All of this was rendered inconsequential after two books happened to me, though: I borrowed Dragonlance: Dragons of Autumn Twilight off of my brother's bookshelf and Dragonflight off of my sixth grade English teacher's bookshelf. Thus was I set along the track. ;)