Young Adult Revisited

Kristy gets bored sitting for David Michael and Emily one day, so she lets them make collages. When flipping through the paper, she sees an ad for the upcoming baby parade and decides to enter Emily. She wants to tell the other members about the parade, but Mrs. Preziosso calls first, needing a long-term sitter for Jenny and Andrea. Before anyone takes the job though, she wants them to attend a baby care class. Kristy gets the job and all the other girls agree to go too. Naturally they all love the class and do great. The teachers host a graduation event and a bunch of their family members go to it. The teacher announces that only two people passed with perfect scores. One is a new father and the other is Kristy. She acts all shocked, but can’t stop beaming. They pick up a bunch of new clients, including Mrs. Salem and her two twins. Kristy is nervous about sitting for Andrea, but puts on her big girl pants. She tries planning a bunch of activities for Jenny, but discov...

Ricky gets picked on by everybody in his school. He joins the school newspaper, but that doesn’t stop the teasing. One day, a guy chases him into the library and he spills soda all over editor Tasha’s keyboard. She screams at him and kicks him off the newspaper. She calls him the next day and asks him to cover the charity car wash. When Ricky gets to the school, Tasha gives him her dad’s very expensive new computer. Can you see where this is going? She warns him that if he messes up again, he won’t get a second chance. Naturally, the four same bullies chase him all over the car wash, drench the camera, and trip him so he falls on it and breaks it. To get back at Tasha for kicking him off the newspaper, he sneaks into the office late one night. He puts a note on the front page, saying that if you’re a creep, then you should call Tasha after midnight with her number listed. He wants to see what happened, but he keeps getting distracted all day and never sees a copy of th...

Todd Wilkins did the unthinkable…he got cool. Okay, so he just bought a motorcycle, but that’s still one of the coolest things he ever did, in any Sweet Valley universe. Unfortunately Liz can’t ride with him and she hasn’t got around to telling him that. At first she just thought he was all talk, but then he got the money together and she chickened out. Jessica reminds her that their way-cool cousin Roxy did in a head-on collision exactly one day after buying the motorcycle that no one wanted him to buy. She also thinks Liz should move on and start dating other people. Liz prefers pretending like she has a cold and making up other excuses for not getting on the bike. Todd finally confronts her about it and she tells him about Roxy. Todd can’t believe that she would think he might pick a motorcycle over her and decides they should just make the most of the time they have together. He shows how trustworthy he is and how much he loves her by immediately giving a ride to an...

Jerry and his little sister Terri (how cruel are their parents!) are spending a few weeks with their dad’s cousins Agatha and Brad. The night before they leave, Jerry has a nightmare involving the two of them exploring a cemetery and a hand coming up from the ground. Terri makes fun of him and they head off for their trip. Terri convinces him to go out and explore the cemetery. They accidentally stumble upon a hidden cave, but three local kids show up and introduce themselves. Louisa, Sam and Nate are siblings that live nearby. They warn them about a ghost that lives in the cave and they laugh it off. They do ask their family, who tell them that the cave is just dangerous. The next day, Jerry and Terri go out picking flowers and he finds a skeleton. Terri freaks out until he realizes that it belonged to a dog. The other kids tell them that the ghost kills dogs because only dogs can recognize ghosts. Their cousins tell them later that the other kids are neighbors. Te...

I’m pretty surprised that I never got around to recapping this one, given that I’ve had a copy for years. In fact, I think this is one of the only Sweet Valley High books that I found from when I was a kid. Ned gets a call from an old pal living in NYC. He suggests that they trade kids for two weeks. One of the twins gets to go to NYC, while the other stays and shows his daughter Suzanne Devlin around. Both twins want to go, so Ned flips and coin and Liz wins. Jessica pitches a hissy fit because she wants to go, and she never, ever gets to leave Sweet Valley. She pulls out all the stops, even suggesting that Lila wants a shot at Todd and Liz agrees to switch places. Suzanne “Suzy” Devlin is a blessing. She compliments everyone, does the dishes, cooks for them, and is the nicest person ever. Todd even teases Liz that she might want to swap out her twin. Suzy confesses that her dad sends her away to a bunch of boarding schools and that she hasn’t had a stable childhood. Liz feels bad...