Young Adult Revisited

  In social studies class, they're working on a unit on the Civil War and the antebellum period. For some reason, this makes all the kids obsessed with Gone with the Wind . They need to do a final project, so Lila decides to throw a GWTW themed party. She naturally plans on dressing up as Scarlet and plans on holding a contest to see who can pull off the best Scarlet costume. Jessica finds the section on voodoo fascinating and makes a voodoo doll of Steven. This happens after he ruins her favorite poster of Johnny Buck. She even cuts up his favorite shirt for the doll. Though Liz sees her, she makes her promise that she won't tell anyone. Before long, everything she does to the doll happens to him. Everything from spilling honey on his shirt to phantom pains in his leg. Jess plans on using her voodoo work for her project. Meanwhile, Liz is volunteering at a shelter and gets along really well with this kid Benjamin. He has leg pain and can't find a reason for his...

  In case you didn't know, Cammi Adams and Randy Mason are the two smartest kids in Sweet Valley Middle School. Mr. Clark, the principal, announces a new contest called Scholar of the Semester. All the local schools will participate with one top student named at the end of the semester. Both Cammi and Randy are in the running. If either win, the whole sixth grade will get a day off school. Jessica decides that one of the two must absolutely win because she's totally sick of school. She goes to them both and offers to help, but they blow her off. Jessica gives them advice such as stealing the other's homework and sucking up to their teachers. Cammi worries that Randy listened to Jessica and puts a bike lock on her locker. Randy sees her and thinks she listened to Jessica, so he takes all his books home with him. When they come to school the next day, they learn that they have a new substitute named Ms. Sherman. Cammi stayed up to late working on her latest assign...

Jessica and Lila love this magazine called California Girl , which does an article called “Real Girl” each month about a normal reader. They both entered for the next month's issue and used Lila's address so they could find out together. Though letters come, Jessica gets a generic form rejection letter and Lila gets picked. They'll come to her house for a photo shoot and to learn all about her. This naturally makes Lila the center of attention. Jessica tries to make it seem like she was the runner up, but Lila busts her and tells them she got a form letter. They all want to hear everything about the shoot. Janet even brags about how they're cousins. When Jessica finds out that Corny O wants to shoot a new commercial with twins, she decides that she and Liz should go for it. Liz agrees after realizing that she could use they money to buy software for the newspaper. After practicing for a few days, they finally tell Ned and Alice about the commercial. They...

Kids in Sweet Valley suddenly start going crazy about some new rock star from France named Coco. At the same time, Brooke Dennis is excited because her mom is coming to visit from France. See where this is going? She's bringing along her new husband Bobby and their daughter Sonya. When Brooke makes plans to meet her mom at her hotel, her mom tells her a big secret: she's actually Coco. Apparently, she took some voice lessons while trying to make it as an actress and got an agent who convinced her to move to France because Europe has a big need for American singers. He then helped her reinvent herself on her way to becoming a big star. She then meets Bernice, her mom's agent. Bernice tells her that they have to keep her mom's private life a big secret. No one knows that she is on her second husband or that she has kids. It would totally ruin her public image because rock stars don't have kids. I'm not making that up either. Bernice literally tells h...

Jessica comes to school one day and hears the principal shouting at someone. After saying that she hopes the person isn't in too much trouble, she learns that it's a new student. Before she can get too excited though, she learns that the new student is deaf. That turns her off because deaf people are as gross as fat people or something. When Anna Reynolds actually shows up, she kind of takes the school by storm. Elizabeth and her friends automatically welcome her and become besties with her, but Jess still thinks it's super weird. Once she meets her though, she realize that she's a cool girl. She even loves dancing and wants to start an aerobics club because she dreams of being an instructor one day. Liz asks Cammi to do an article on Anna for the paper. Cammi keeps putting her off with excuses and then heads home to her two deaf parents. Both she and her little sister can hear but use ASL to communicate with their parents. She gets really bitter about how...

All the kids, or at least all the girls, at SVMS keep hanging out at Casey's because they love Joe, the college guy he hired to work there. Joe is super friendly and nice to everyone. He gives them extra ice cream, makes the best treats, and he even volunteers as a clown to help out at the children's hospital and other places. Joe also got all the girls interested in brainteasers and keeps giving them puzzles to figure out. The only downside to hanging out there is Jeff Casey, the owner's nephew. He clearly doesn't like kids and keeps telling Joe to get to work and complaining about the kids wasting his time. Jeff interrupts them and tells Joe to do some work while complaining under his breath about how the shop isn't his yet. Joe needs to do a good job because he wants to cut out early for a performance. Jessica realizes that they are out of pads at a very inconvenient time and asks Liz to go and buy some more. Liz tells her no because she's all...

Hold onto your hats ladies and gentlemen because Winston wants to join the Boosters. He took gymnastics classes over the summer and got really good. When he brings it up though, it's a hard no from Janet. She tells him to take a hike, even though some of the other girls think he would be a good addition to the squad. Todd think it's a little odd but would be a good way to meet girls. Since Jessica could not stop talking about it at dinner, Liz knows the whole story. She thinks it's a good idea and that other people would too. This gives Winston the confidence to approach Janet again and ask her how many people would need to sign a petition before she will let him audition. She tells him 100, which is almost the entire sixth grade. Winston gets Amy, Grace, Jessica, Todd, and Ken to sign. Jessica and Lila decide to put a stop to the nonsense when they see him talking to Randy and Leslie, two nerds. They act like a boy on the squad is crazy and pretend to be th...

Even though this is book number 111 and the first book started the school year, it's somehow Thanksgiving in Sweet Valley. Alice goes completely bonkers because it's their turn to host the big family dinner. Her sister Laura is coming from Arizona with her daughter Kelly and her sister Nancy is coming with her husband and their kids Robin and Stacey. The twins have a vacation from school and want to relax, but Alice gives them tons of chores to do like dusting all the light bulbs, mopping the kitchen floor, and vacuuming the stairs. The twins are both tired and start getting really snippy with each other. Jessica acts like Elizabeth is a slob for leaving a sweater downstairs and not taking it to her room and throws a fit when Liz points out that Jess actually borrowed that sweater and lost it. They also fight over who will do what chores and what they'll do when their cousins get there. Alice tells them to knock it off. Jessica overhears Alice on the phone and sa...