Young Adult Revisited

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 poi...

Ned and Alice somehow think that the perfect Christmas Even activity is taking the kids to Evelyn's, some new department store. Once they get there, the parents decide to let the kids have some time alone as long as they stick together. They immediately head to the toy department and go crazy over these little cars. When they try to sit in them though, a man comes over and screams at them. He's Mr. Fegato, the manager of the whole store. Fegato tells them that unless they have money, they need to sod off but in nicer words. The twins want to explore and look for the perfect gift for Alice. They find a jewelry box they love but is too expensive and head to the sleepwear department. Steven gets so bored that he decides to go off on his own, though he does remind them that they have just a little bit before they need to meet up with their parents. While wandering through the store, some random guy rushes by. He grabs Jessica's purse and takes off with all their...

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 par...

Ned is with the twins at the mall to see Santa at the Christmas Village when they run into all of their friends. He buys them all popsicles and lets them hang out before they meet Santa. While Jessica has a long list of things that she wants, Liz just hopes that the Super Snooper Club gets a new mystery. Ned then decides to visit his client, Mr. Fox, in his jewelry store to look for a gift for Alice. While they are looking at all the expensive jewelry, two guys come inside. One is a younger guy with dark hair, while the other is an older guy with white hair in a black suit with a red tie. Mr. Fox shows them some diamonds from his safe, gets distracted, and suddenly realizes that the diamonds are gone at the same time that the two guys take off. Jessica tells security that she saw them steal the diamonds, even though she didn't actually see anything. The guards give chase and catch the younger guy who lets them check out his briefcase. When they don't find anyth...

Mrs. Otis, the twins' teacher, announces that they're having a special guest: some zookeeper will bring in some animals for the class. One student gets to be the helper. All the kids get their names put on the board and then ten stars after them. She'll take one star off every time they do something bad, and whoever has the most stars at the end of the week is the winner. Jessica and Ellen both lose four stars the first day because they get caught whispering in class. Even though Lila was whispering too, the teacher never caught her. Somehow, both she and Liz have the most stars out of everyone. Jessica and Elizabeth both head over to Amy's house and play in the yard. Liz climbs up the tree, loses her balance, and falls out. Mr. Sutton calls Alice and then rushes the group to the hospital where they learn that Liz broke her arm. If you read the title of this book, you probably aren't really that surprised! Even though she feels totally fine, Liz has ...

This is the only SVK book I've read so far that has Steven as the narrator instead of one of the twins. He's tired of his sisters being around all the time and gets them back on Valentine's Day. Steven puts a card in Charlie's lunchbox from Jessica and one in Todd's from Elizabeth. Charlie finds his and makes a big deal out of how gross it is, which makes everyone laugh at Jess. Todd just reads his and puts it away without saying anything. While taking the kids out for dinner, Ned and Alice tell Steven that they signed him up for dance lessons. His friend Bob has to go too. The twins act like huge pests and dance around him while drawing attention to him in the middle of the restaurant. Bob tells him that even if they have to wear a tie and long pants, they can still do something different and comes up with a plan. At his first lesson, the teacher pairs him with this girl Tina. He shows her their “plan,” which is that they both wore heavy hiking boots....

The twins are running around and playing like usual when they see Lois by herself. They pick her up and then run into Amy. Amy invites them all to come with her to the movies that night, but Lois can't come because her mom wants to take her to that movie over the weekend. She also reveals that her and her mom watched a movie together they night before and had more plans together. Her grandmother passed away, and since her dad is also gone, her mom depends on her a lot. Todd then shows up and invites them to come and play baseball with some other kids. Lois does really badly as usual but then helps make a double play. All the kids love her, but she needs to suddenly leave because her mom wants to take her to a restaurant for dinner. The twins feel bad that her grandmother died but feel even worse that her mom won't give her a break. It's in the middle of a major heat wave in Sweet Valley. The twins sleep in the den, which is the only room with an AC, and talk w...

It's summer in Sweet Valley or something because all the kids are on the beach. The twins are hanging out with Amy, Eva, Lila, Ellen, Todd, and Winston when Jessica decides to bury her legs in the sand. While trying to get out, she finds two silver dollars in the sand and rushes to tell her parents. They make a joke about her finding buried treasure, but Ned tells them that they need real equipment to find real gold and points to a woman on the beach with a metal detector. The kids instantly run over and start badgering her. Todd wants to know how it works, Elizabeth wants to ask her a bunch of questions, and Jessica wants to brag about her treasure. The woman tells them to sod off and shouts at them when the detector goes off because they literally just jump down and start digging in the sand . Everyone else thinks she's mean and calls her Mrs. Crabby, but Elizabeth thinks that she's hiding something. Eva tells them that if you find buried treasure that you have...

Apparently, Jessica won a radio contest in the last book and got tickets to Fantasy Forest, some huge amusement park. The contest was only open to kids 13 or older, and Liz freaked out and told them the truth. They were so happy about her being honest that they got enough tickets for their whole family and Joe. When they get to Fantasy Forest, Jessica will not STFU about the Princess Pageant, which is some show where real girls model actually dresses owned and worn by real princesses. It seems like even Alice is tired of hearing this story. The twins want to ride some rides, but the boys want to go on roller coasters. Ned and Alice decide that since the park is “so safe” that they'll let them all go out on their own as long as they meet up for lunch and dinner. The girls head to the Enchanted Castle first for some ride that seems like It's a Small World. Elizabeth thinks she sees someone peeking out from a window on the castle and freaks out, but Jessica convinc...

At some point in time and in one of the books I never read, the twins got a new teacher named Mr. Crane. He takes the whole class to a massive art exhibit and then announces that he wants them to put on their own show. Mr. Crane also loves animals and brings in a different animal each week. This week is a parrot named Petey. The kids all have complete freedom to make anything they want. Winston goes totally creative and makes a bunch of abstract paintings. Jessica decides to make her own glittery crown that she can play with and wear later. Todd keeps sketching, and Charlie steals his pad to see what he's doing. It turns out that Todd is secretly an amazing caricature artist and did cartoons of everyone. He does Lois as a bunch of grapes because she wears purple all the time and draws Elizabeth with big feet playing soccer. All the kids start making fun of her, and Charlie gets them to call her Bigfoot. Elizabeth eventually comes up with the best idea ever. She dec...

Lila can't stop bragging about the trip her dad recently took to Hawaii for business. Not only did he promise her that he would take her when she turned 10, but he also brought her back a necklace made from seashells that you can't find anywhere else in the world. Hating that her friend is the center of attention, Jessica keeps claiming that she sees monsters in the school yard and on the road. Elizabeth eventually reminds her of the boy who cried wolf. The kids are all excited because they're taking a field trip to a water preserve. While all the other kids wore practical and sensible clothing like shorts and running shoes, Jessica refused to wear anything but her new outfit, which consists of black patent leather shoes with slick soles and a blue sailor outfit. This limits what she can do and leads to her walking way slower than everyone else. While looking at a pool of water, Jessica sees a figure with long hair and big eyes that then disappears. She runs...

If you ever wondered when the twins found out that Elizabeth is exactly four minutes older than Jessica, it's in this book. Their teacher sits them down to tell them about the big soap box derby race coming up. All the kids go a little insane at the idea of building and racing their own cars but especially Ken. Ken's dad not only won the championship when he was younger but he actually made it all the way to the finals in Ohio. Yay! My state! While talking to their parents that night, Ned tells them that both them and Steven were born in the middle of the night and mentions the twins coming out at different times. It apparently never occurred to them before that they didn't come out at the same time. Elizabeth decides that since she's the older twin, she should act like an older kid. Alice takes them to buy everything they need for their cars except for wheels. They run into Ken and his dad, who already have wheels, but Ken refuses to give them any ...

Jessica and Elizabeth are super excited because their neighbor, Mrs. DeVito – no relation to Danny – just had a new baby. She told the girls they could come over anytime they wanted to see baby Jenny. The girls are so enamored over the baby that they start wishing their mom would have a baby too. Alice gushes over Jenny and how much she loves babies, which doesn't help the situation. After talking it over, the girls decide that they convince their mom to have another kid. Alice and Ned actually talk about how much they loved having kids and tease Steven because he was super into his new sisters. He even tucked his favorite stuffed rabbit in with Jessica when she cried. The girls assume that their plan is working and that they can tell all their friends about it. They even make lists of their favorite baby names. When they find out that their classmate Andy's mom is pregnant, they ask him what it's like. He tells them how his mom gets weird cravings and is t...