Sweet Valley Kids #45: Elizabeth's Piano Lessons

Amy conveniently spent the night with Julie Porter and is eager to talk about how her friend is taking piano lessons. Julie's teacher plans on holding a recital, which means that she gets to wear a new pretty dress in front of tons of people. Jessica decides that it sounds like fun and that they should take piano lessons too. Elizabeth disagrees and wants to take riding lessons with Amy instead. Her twin mysteriously tells her that it doesn't matter.

When they get home that night, Alice reveals that she signed them up for piano lessons. Their Aunt Helen conveniently called that morning and offered to pay for the kids' lessons. Steven wants to go to summer basketball camp, and when Jess told her how much Liz wanted to take piano lessons, Alice signed them up. Jess even announces that she heard their mom on the phone that morning and knew all about it in advance.

Since even little Liz is still Liz, she decided to go through with it anyway. She plays in the park until the last possible second before her lesson and seems really unhappy. While Jess does great, Liz is awful. She can't concentrate because she doesn't want to be there and hates practicing at home. Their teacher, Leo, tells Jess that he picked out a song for the twins to do together. Jess keeps trying to make Liz practice at home, but it always sounds awful.

Aunt Helen shows up for their recital and listens to the twins play. At the end, she takes Liz for a walk and tells her a story. When she was a kid, she took four year of piano lessons. Her mom thought she loved them, but she just wanted to ride horses. When she told her mom, her mom canceled her lessons and side her up for horseback riding. Liz then tells her all about the classes she actually wants to take. Ned and Alice let Liz drop out and everyone goes to see Jessica play at the recital. They then take Liz to the stable and announced that they signed her up for horseback riding lessons, so everyone wins.

*How can a kid in the second grade be so manipulative? Jessica literally lies to everyone so she can take lessons and doesn't care how her twin feels because she wants a fancy dress and to be the center of attention.

*I love that Liz is the musical one in high school and that Alice even says she was always more interested in music. In this book, Jess is great at piano and Liz sucks.

*Jess says they already take a ton of lessons like modern dance and soccer, so I'm not sure why they even needed something new.

*I'd really like to know if this book came out around the time they introduced Julie in the Sweet Valley High series!

*Ned and Alice immediately go out and rent an upright piano for the twins after signing them up for lessons. I guess that makes sense but it seems like a serious investment for something your kids might hate.