The title is good, and so is the ice cream and sweets style cover. I like the book, too, but I’m unsure whether it’s too American for the average young reader in Britain.
This new book by Gennifer Choldenko reminds me of Sarah Dessen in content, if not in style. It’s about two twelve-year-olds in San Francisco; Kirsten and Walker. One is rich, one is less so. They each have problems at home and at school, and then find they have a shared problem as well.
I think the problems they they face are a good idea to write about, but I’m less sure about the very affluent setting. And most of the adults are perfectly ghastly. This is a short and easy read, and by the second half it got a lot better. There’s almost too much padding in the first half.
I wouldn’t mind trying some of Gennifer’s other books, because the titles are temptingly amusing. Maybe Bloomsbury could provide a glossary and explanations of the US school system for us born on the wrong side of the Atlantic.
6 responses so far ↓
pbmum // January 8, 2008 at 11:10
It always surprises me how quickly children seem to understand the differences between different school systems. All of mine have loved the Louis Sachar Wayside School books and don’t seem to struggle with what a yard teacher is, for example. Similarly with my daughter’s devotion to Judy Moody. I, in contrast can’t even cope with the way that they’ve rejigged primary school since I was there. I always have to convert Year Six into ‘old money’.
bookwitch // January 8, 2008 at 13:41
You’re probably right. I’m simply too old. And I’m already struggling with this foreign school system I’m putting Offspring through…
Julie Bertagna // January 8, 2008 at 14:24
I think kids see so much US teen TV that they, unlike us, get it just fine. My 13 yr old talks US school terms like a native. I had no problem ’settling into’ the Chalet School back in the 70s, despite never having set foot out of Scotland, or into a boarding school and wrong-guessed so much of the mysterious German & French of those polyglot Chalet girls. It was a surprise in Ist year secondary (your Year 8?) to discover that mademoiselle wasn’t pronounced ‘madem-oy - sellie’ and chalet didn’t rhyme with mallet…. but I lived and loved those books.
bookwitch // January 8, 2008 at 14:34
When I was much younger (8 maybe) I read a Swedish children’s classic about a family where the mother was a former Shakespeare actress. You should have heard me trying to pronounce the great man’s name, so that I could ask my mother who he was.
Julie Bertagna // January 8, 2008 at 15:16
I should have asked, bookwitch, were/are the Chalet School books in translation in Sweden? They were sort of ‘Harry Potter without wands’ for girls of my generation.
bookwitch // January 8, 2008 at 21:16
Dear, dear. I had to first find author name, which I have to admit to recognising. But, I don’t recall the Swedish title at all, which appears to be Alphyddan. So it was translated. But much as I liked that kind of book, this has passed me by. Adored boarding school books, so Harry Potter suits me fine.
Leave a Comment