Category Archives: Vintage YA Fiction

How Do You Lose Those Ninth Grade Blues? By Barthe DeClements

Posted on August 5, 2017 by

Will Elsie be able to accept her (beautiful!) new self? This is the first of two (sadly out-of-print) books following up on the life of Elsie Edwards from Nothing’s Fair in Fifth Grade, the school fatty with a horrifying mother … Continue reading →

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Barbie and Ken By Cynthia Lawrence and Bette Lou Maybee

Posted on July 28, 2017 by

How these popular high school classmates solve their dilemmas makes for many hours of entertaining reading! Upon her introduction in 1959, Mattel’s Barbie doll was intended to be something of a blank slate: a glamorous avatar on which girls could … Continue reading →

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Promised Kiss (First Love From Silhouette #14) By Veronica Ladd

Posted on June 30, 2017 by

All her friends think Roger is weird, but Karen knows better… Background: 236 First Love titles were published between 1981 and 1987 by Silhouette, “AMERICA’S publisher of Contemporary Romance” (distinguishing itself from its main competitor, the Canadian-based Harlequin, which would fold Silhouette … Continue reading →

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Robin West: Nurse’s Aide By Louise Christopher

Posted on June 16, 2017 by

The pretty nurse’s aide becomes involved in the strange life of a beautiful debutante… It’s easy to see why nurse books were so popular amongst young, female readers of the 20th century: nurses got to actually do things: live away … Continue reading →

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Prank By Kathryn Lasky

Posted on June 3, 2017 by

How can the words of the past give Birdie hope for the future? Well, this another one where the cover-copy barely matches the actual content of the book: it’s sold to readers as being about a high school student who … Continue reading →

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Steffie Can’t Come Out To Play By Fran Arrick

Posted on May 19, 2017 by

To meet a man like Favor on her very first day in New York City… Runaway teen stories if this era can be numbingly repetitive- when 14 year old Stephanie Rudd explains that’s she ditching her terrible family and terrible … Continue reading →

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Project Boyfriend By Stephanie St. Pierre

Posted on May 11, 2017 by

Can Stacey capture Max’s heart, or is her downhill romance destined for a crash landing? This one came out in 1991, fairly late in the run of Bantam’s Sweet Dreams romance imprint, which I didn’t notice until I sat down … Continue reading →

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