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Which of these books should I read this week?
The Sylvia Game, by Vivien Alcock. Spooky fantasy about a girl who resembles Sylvia. Whoever Sylvia is.
21 (29.6%)
Just Like Jenny, by Sandy Asher. Teenage ballet dancer friends get an important audition.
12 (16.9%)
Goddess of Yesterday, by Caroline Cooney. Historical fantasy involving Helen of Troy and tentacles.
28 (39.4%)
Twenty Pageants Later, by Caroline Cooney. "My sister did research and found out you have a much better chance of being Miss America if you come from Texas and have a double first name."
22 (31.0%)
The Watching Eyes, by Barbara Corcoran. Spooky fantasy about a strange family a girl finds in the middle of nowhere.
13 (18.3%)
Dark Horse, by Jean Slaughter Doty. A girl finds that the neglected horse she nurses back to health is a fabulous jumper.
17 (23.9%)
Juniper, by Monica Furlong. The prequel to Wise Child, a slice-of-life historical fantasy.
23 (32.4%)
The War Between the Pitiful Teachers and the Splendid Kids, by Stanley Kiesel. I bought this book because I tried to read it as a kid and was utterly baffled. It looks completely bizarre.
17 (23.9%)
Ponies in the Attic, by Irene Makin. A girl befriends a pony and finds mysterious pony drawings in her new home.
14 (19.7%)
A Certain Magic, by Doris Orgel. A girl finds the diary of her aunt, a WWII refugee, that seems to be about... an evil ring!
13 (18.3%)
Building Blocks, by Cynthia Voigt. Timeslip in which a boy gets to meet his father as a boy.
13 (18.3%)
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I think they were both inspired by Shakespeare's "Who is Sylvia? What is she?"
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This book was recently covered by Lost Classics of Teen Lit. She didn't like it very much.
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The War Between the Pitiful Teachers and the Splendid Kids is SO WEIRD. Though at least half of what is weird about it is what I took to be a daringly open ending when I was ten was just the setup for a sequel that I never saw, and which seems to have received universally terrible reviews.
It is one of those "Fuck (most) adults! Be very weird!" very counterculture books like The Grounding of Group Six, complete with extremely hostile grown-ups and also a girl who is half-hyena.
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I actually did read this one and its sequel, Skinny Malinky Leads the War for Kidness. I believe they are bizarre.
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They were both on the shelves of my middle school library when I was in seventh grade! I remember weird amounts of violence and Dickensian names! In that respect I have them sort of mentally classed with Philip Ridley's Dakota of White Flats (1989) and Michael de Larrabeiti's Borribles trilogy, but it is impossible for me to tell without re-reading if they were any good at all or just bizarre.
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I definitely remember the existence of "The War Between the Pitiful Teachers and the Splendid Kids" but I can't remember if I read it or not.
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I can remember two actual plot points and one of them involved the feral girl raised by hyenas eating a teacher.
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I think the evil principal is secretly an ant.
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If you read it, let me know if I was right!
(In the meantime, your icons are on point.)
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I've just sent Just Like Jenny to the charity shop in a clear out because I couldn't remember anything about it
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I loved *Juniper* as a kid/teen, I think better than *Wise Child* (also it had a prettier cover), though I think partly that was because it's closer to the standard epic fantasy formula, so I'm not sure if I'd have the same reaction as an adult.
I love the Monica Furlong books for the way they balance domesticity with high fantasy, similar to Prydain actually. Also I still think about *Juniper* when I'm in a knitting project, realize I've made a mistake several rows back, and have to decide whether to unpick to fix it or let it be and go on.
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