Sweet Valley Kids #75: Little Drummer Girls

Mr. Crane, who is I guess their new teacher, brings in a bunch of musical instruments for the kids to play. After they try them all out, he announces that he's holding auditions to see who will play what in the St. Patrick's Day parade. Jessica becomes obsessed with the drum and think she's the best, but so does everyone else. Even Liz wants to play the drum.

During auditions, Liz goes on the drum first and does great. Jess goes next and does horribly. She was so focused on the first song they played that she couldn't focus on the one in the audition. Their teacher asks her to try the flutophone, which she does a good job playing. Jess gets it, and Liz gets to be the little drummer girl. Since this is Jess though, she convinces Liz to switch parts with her. She really wants to lead the whole parade, which the drummer does.

The twins dress as each other and even switch their name bracelets for class. Jessica does a really bad job with the drum, to the point where the teacher decides she should take it home for more practice. Liz does such a good job with the flute that he asks her to do a solo in the parade.

Things go even worse at home. Ned actually sneaks out of the room while she's playing, Steven stuffs his ears with socks, and Alice claims she suddenly needs to run errands away from home. At school, Jessica is constantly off the tempo. When she leads the class, they run into walls and stuff. While practicing at home the night before the parade, she discovers Liz wearing earplugs to avoid listening to her. Liz then gets so sick that she has to miss the parade and asks Jess to take her place with the flute solo.

Jessica steps up and tells Mr. Crane about the twin switch. She then asks if he'll play the drum and let her have the flute solo. He tells her no because she was the one who wanted to make the switch and she needs to live with her decisions. While he does tell her that, Liz then shows up. She faked being sick to make Jess realize that she was good with the flute. Liz takes over the drumming, and Jess gets her solo after all.

*Why would you have a solo in the middle of a parade? Mr. Crane says that everyone will stop to listen to her play. What kind of messed up parade is this?

*Jessica literally says she wants the drum because she wants to lead the class through the streets and then gets rewarded with a solo on a completely different instrument.

*Flutophone is the word used every time it's mentioned in the book. I have no clue if it's the same as a flute but I'm guessing so.

*I'm not sure when the books started the first person point of view, but this one is all from Jessica's perspective and I'm not a fan.

*The illustrations changed too! Now we get these random little drawings that are only a couple of inches long and wide instead of a full page.

*In the back is an idea for making “magic” pudding where you put food coloring in the bottom of a bowl and then fill it with pudding. According to the author, it will wow your friends when they mix it and the color changes. If I was eating pudding and it suddenly developed these weird streaks, I'm pretty sure I would freak out!