A roundup of reading recommendations for tweens and teens that highlight – and help with – some of the drama of those middle and high school years.
AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
Teen girls might like drama, but the publishing world hasn’t always treated them as stars worthy of their own dramas. That shifted in the 1980s when Francine Pascal began writing about identical twin sisters at a SoCal high school.
FRANCINE PASCAL: I wanted girls to drive the action. And in “Sweet Valley,” those girls do drive the action.
RASCOE: There were so many heartfelt tributes when Francine Pascal died earlier this summer, it got us wondering, what are some books today that while not totally sweet, might still appeal to those kind of readers who would have loved the Valley? We put that question to two of our favorite readers, Linda Holmes, host of Pop Culture Happy Hour, and Barrie Hardymon, NPR’s investigations editor. Hey to both of you.
BARRIE HARDYMON, BYLINE: Hello.
LINDA HOLMES, BYLINE: Hi there.
RASCOE: So, what are the ingredients of a book that “Sweet Valley-ish,” even if that sort of book may not totally exist right now?
HOLMES: Yeah, one of the things Barrie and I were talking about is that this is a genre of book that, in this form, doesn’t really exist anymore – for one thing, very episodic, and therefore very long series where they can just kind of go on forever. Although they address, like, certain issues, and there is lots of drama, they’re largely ultimately pretty frictionless in a lot of ways. This is not really a thing that gets written anymore. So I would say what you’re looking for is things that feel somewhat true to a teenage experience, maybe have a little bit of the drama and scandal…
HARDYMON: Drama.
HOLMES: …And things like that. Yeah. Yeah.
HARDYMON: Young adult fiction series and otherwise have actually gotten a lot more interesting and layered and nuanced.
HOLMES: I agree.
HARDYMON: We can certainly celebrate the grandmother of all of them, but “Sweet Valley” – we can put it to bed now.
RASCOE: So what are some of the recommendations you brought us?
HOLMES: You want to start, Barrie?
HARDYMON: Sure. When I thought about the ingredients of what make, you know, “Sweet Valley” so particular, it’s that feeling in high school about desire, status, and wealth. And there is a trilogy of books by an artist and writer named Jerry Craft. They are graphic novels about a young Black kid from Washington Heights, and he ends up going to Riverdale Academy Day School, this mostly white prep school. And it talks about – not in a preachy way – what it’s like to be a middle grade kid dealing with social micro-aggressions and trying to figure out where you are and who you are when you’re surrounded by people who are different than you. And I think that there was not a lot in “Sweet Valley High” where it was OK to be different, right? Like, if you were brunette, you were different. You know what I mean?
RASCOE: (Laughter).
HOLMES: I also think it’s interesting that there are a lot of protagonists of color and queer protagonists and some of the most kind of beloved books for these age groups – there’s a book called “I Kissed Shara Wheeler” by Casey McQuiston, a romance between girls. And I think that what you get is a richer sense of who is in the world. One of the things that I did in researching this segment was refer to some of the NPR Books We Love coverage, and found there these graphic novels called “Huda F Are You?” and “Huda F Cares” by Huda Fahmy, which are about sort of a fictionalized version of herself, living as a Muslim young person. Those are also graphic novels. So do not sleep on graphic novels.
RASCOE: My two daughters, who are 8 and 6 – they love the graphic novel versions of “The Baby-Sitters Club.” Do you have any recommendations for, like, that younger set, you know, kind of for the little kids?
HARDYMON: I would say, there’s just such a wonderful series by Shannon Hale. The first one is called “Real Friends,” the second one is “Best Friends,” and the last one is “Friends Forever.” And it really deals with a lot of the sort of roller coaster of friend groups. Like, when you’re 8, you’re sort of in your first friend group, and you’re about to hit that 9, 10, 11, where things might change. The protagonist, whose name is Adrienne, starts hanging out with the popular girl. It’s a really great prep for the heartaches that might come in middle school as you sort of grow in and out of people.
RASCOE: Lightning round – if you had to pick just one book that gives you those “Sweet Valley” vibes and makes you want to grab your backpack and head back to high school – now, I don’t know why you want to do that. But who – what would it be?
HOLMES: There’s absolutely nothing that could make me want to go back to high school under any circumstances. But Beverly Cleary, who a lot of people know as the writer of the Ramona Quimby books for little kids and the Henry Huggins books and that kind of thing, also wrote a book called “Fifteen” about a girl who meets a boy, and it is so square. It is probably unbelievably dated. But I loved it, and I related to it, and it gives me that high school vibe.
HARDYMON: For me, the vibes that I might want to capture again are not necessarily the vibes that I had in high school. What I really wanted was, like, a boy crush. The books that I just love are the “Heartstopper” books. This is an ongoing series by a British author named Alice Oseman. It’s about these two boys who start to step toward this sort of mutual romance, and it gave me the feeling I had when I watched Jordan Catalano take Claire Danes’ hands in “My So-Called Life.” I mean, that kind of this is the most important romance on the Earth. But mostly, there’s a tenderness to these books that almost give me the feeling that I might like to go back.
RASCOE: That’s NPR’s Barrie Hardymon and Linda Holmes. Thank you both so much.
HARDYMON: You’re welcome.
HOLMES: Thank you.
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