Young Adult Revisited

Trina and her brother Dan have a ventriloquist obsessed dad. He had a dozen of the dummies stuck up in the attic, in a space he calls his own museum. He brings home a new dummy that he found in a dumpster and fixed up his head. Trina finds a slip of paper in its pocket and reads the funny words written on it. The dummy winks at her and then slaps her across the face, but no one believes her. A few days later their cousin Zane comes to spend a week. When he visited the summer before, they scared the crap out of him with the dummies, so his dad makes them promise not to do it again. Of course weird crap starts happening right off the bat. One night they find a dummy sitting at the kitchen table and on another night, the same dummy seems to follow them around the house. Zane takes a bunch of pictures and develops them in their dad’s darkroom in the basement. He gets pissed off when he finds that over half the photos are of the dummies. Trina and Dan start wondering i...

Animals are pretty much everywhere in this book from the very beginning. Mary Anne tells Dawn about Mojo and James, two gorillas on loan from the San Diego Zoo. Then they go to the movies and see signs about a store that bought an elephant from a circus and use it as a display. Little Babar has a collection and donations go towards saving him. They go to school and see a giant cardboard box outside and all the science teachers wearing trench coats and sunglasses. The classes all meet in the auditorium and they bring out the giant box. The teachers open their jackets and reveal shirts with the slogan of the Bedford Zoo on the front. Then they learn that they are all getting divided into groups and each group must study animal behavior. Buses will take kids to the zoo. Mary Anne gets stuck with Alan, while Dawn, Claudia and Logan end up in another group. Kristy is most pissed because she’s in a group with Stacey. This book comes during the timeframe where Stacey qu...

You probably can’t tell by the cover, but that is Tina and she’s so beautiful that everyone thinks she will become a model. I also want to point out that I’m fairly certain I had that dress. Tina and her cousin Holly are heading to visit her boyfriend Josh at college. Tina wanted to go on her own, but her parents made her take her cousin. Holly just wants to party and check out the drama department, while Tina wants to do some heavy making out. They get to the bus station and there’s no sign of Josh. Tina sees a flash and some creepy guy attacks them. A handsome guy jumps out of the shadows, chases the guy off and reveals himself as Josh’s roommate Chris. Josh went on a camping trip with his friend Steve, had car trouble and won’t be back until late. Chris takes them to their dorm room because he’s staying at his photography shop. He convinces them to go to a party with him and leaves so they can get ready. A girl walks in, sees Tina and freaks out. She calms down and sa...

Stacey’s favorite teacher is leaving for a few weeks, turning his class over to a student teacher named Wes Ellenberg. Stacey feels bad for him because he has a geeky name and she’s sure he’ll be a huge dork. When he arrives in class, she’s struck dumb because he looks just like Tom Cruise. Of course she develops a huge crush on him, thinks about him all the time and starts dressing up for class. After a few days, she decides that he doesn’t like pants, so she only wears dresses to school. She spends a lot of time on her homework and even incorporates jokes, so he’ll think she’s funny. On their next big assignment, she’s the only one to get a perfect score and he singles her out in class. He starts calling on her more and asking her to show other people how to do hard work. One day she stays after class to talk to him and he asks her to stay late and help him organize his paperwork. A few days later he asks for her help again because he can’t find some of the thin...

Jessica doesn’t like Sandra Ferris, but then again no one really seems to like her. She’s tall, gawky and a big klutz. Liz invites her over to the house one day and she asks Jessica a question. She sees her working on some sketches and fawns all over her designs. When she mopes about her own looks, Jessica offers to give her a makeover. The twins do her hair and makeup and take her shopping at the mall. The next day at school, everyone fawns all over her. Girls suddenly want to be her best friend, guys are noticing her and even the Unicorns offer to let her sit with them. Jessica tries telling people that she did the makeover, but Sandra acts like it just suddenly came to her one day and doesn’t tell anyone the truth. The middle school is hosting two different competitions. One is for a student to introduce the mayor at the next school assembly and the other is for Citizen of the Year. Jessica wants to win both, especially Citizen of the Year because then she gets...