Help me find two books
December 28, 2006 | 12:51 pm | Uncategorized | Reading | 8
I was just listening to an NPR story about how they’re turning a book beloved by millions of children worldwide into a movie starring that little brat Dakota Fanning. Tell me, America, are we so short of creative ideas that we have to take perfectly wonderful ideas and turn them into beyond mediocre versions of the original?
I already hate everything about this movie. I hate little Pigface Fanning and I hate Julia Roberts and I hate Oprah and I hate… Oh My. Steve Buscemi AND John Cleese have roles in this blasphemy? What has happened to my heros?
Anywayy. All this annoyance recently reminded me of two books I read and LUUUUURVED in grade school. I remember some very specific details about both books but can’t remember either title or author, so I’m hoping you all can help me.
The first one takes place right after WWII and is told from the perspective of a young Jewish girl who moves from New York (or someplace similar) to Florida. She lives with her grandparents and parents and there is a lot of description of them sitting around the radio, her grandmother practicing the Shabbat. There is a segment on borscht soup and a lot of talk in the beginning of the book about how they live in a building with a party line and she regularly eavesdrops on her neighbors’ conversations.
The second book involves a character I think named Alexandria or something similar. Her parents decide to move into a new house so they ask her to make a list of what she would like in the house. She doesn’t want to move, so she asks for a house with a tower thinking they’ll never find one. They do, though, and after they move the tower becomes her bedroom. In one scene of the book I think she starts peeling the wallpaper off her bedroom wall and finds a note written by a previous resident. In another part of the book she discovers a bookstore called “Pages.” She thinks this is clever until she learns that it’s the owner’s last name.
It’s entirely possible either of these books was written by Judy Blume or one of the other young adult authors like her. I’d love to re-read these books again in a vain effort to capture my fast-fading youth.
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No idea on the first book but the second may be
Anastasia Krupnik by Lois Lowry
or one of the others in the Anastasia series
Ah, the first book is Judy Blume
“Starring Sally J. Freedman As Herself “
Okay, Ron, that’s just scary.
I was thinking that surely you were going to mention “The Summer of My (Insert Forgotten Ethnicity Here) Soldier.”
I would have gotten that one, except for the ethnicity.
I loved Sally J Freedman. And she loves Esther Williams swimming movies, and doesn’t like tongue. And I learned that it’s good luck to have a bird poop on you from reading that book…. remember?
I am rereading some childhood favorites now to my son. Mary Poppins, Half Magic, Stuart Little, Pippi Longstocking, the Saturdays…
Happy New YEar!
Sarabeth, exactly, and even as a kid I remember being fascinated with things like her Esther Williams obsession and the fact her family had a party-line telephone. Also, when I was a kid and a bird pooped on me I remembered the book to keep from crying.
I would love to re-read these. I’m also adding to the list “Harriet the Spy.”
Starring Sally J. Freed… oh I see someone has already titled it. I happen to have a copy right here. Not kidding.
And that other one someone tried to mention is Summer of my German Soldier. Love it. Also still have it on my shelf.
Oh yeah, I still have Harriet on my bookshelf. She was a blogger way ahead of her time.
Here’s more: All-of-a-Kind Family. Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle. and of course… Little House in the Big Prairie Creek Town ….
sarabeth