Elizabeth and Jessica are always at odds, and in this new book, are fighting over Lila. Lila is Jessica's friend, and part of the Unicorns group, so Jessica is angry when Liz starts to take an interest in the popular rich girl because she has a horse. Thunder is appealing to all of the girls at school who are interested in horses, and the girls are offering to do Lila's homework to get near the stables. Lila isn't really interested in horses at all, because they are a lot of work, as well as being smelly, but she's enjoying the surge in popularity. Liz, who writes for the school newspaper, offers to do an article on Thunder, so has to hang out at the stables. She's thrilled to groom the horse and practice riding, and spends so much time at the stables that the staff, including Ted, think she should enter the upcoming competition. The only problem? It's for owners. Jessica is sad and angry that Lila isn't spending time with her, but pleased when she gets invited to a slumber party. Of course, Lila has invited Liz (who has a horrible time) as well as other hangers on, so no one but Lila is happy. When Liz spills a secret about her friend Amy, Amy is not happy, and eventually ends up ratting out Liz's desire to compete. Jessica embarasses herself a bit by flirting with the older Ted, who is more interested in her older brother Steven, but in the end, everything works out.
The Sweet Valley Twins books, based on 1980s paperbacks, are an interesting look at what middle grade literature used to be: lots of realistic friend and family drama, short books with simple plots, and books that were just fun to read. Mothers were reading Harlequin Romances, and tween girls got massive series like Martin's The Baby-Sitters Club and Haynes' The Fabulous Five. These weren't necessarily great literature, but they were addictive, and they lead children to read a lot and to wait for the next book to come out. Modern publishing should take note.
Whittle's illustrations are fairly similar to the ones in other volumes of this series, and are brightly colored with a variety of pastels. There are lots of expressive eyes, and an interesting array of fashions that give a nod to the book's 1980s origin; there are few girls at my school who ever where dresses or skirts, but they are quite the fashion in Sweet Valley.
The graphic novel adaptation does seem somewhat updated, although I have not been able to compare this to the original. The cast seems a little more diverse; I'm not sure Ted, with his prosthetic leg and LGBTQIA+ identity, was portrayed exactly this way in the original. The mother is good about talking to the girls and trying to help them with their problems. Lila is still very 1980s; it never occurs to her that having other people doing her school work might make it hard for her to understand the material in the long run. Her family situation is over the top; fancy house, billing daddy for transporting the horse to her back yard, and a seeming disregard for everyone but herself.
Did I personally enjoy this? Not really. The sisters constantly bickering over everything wore on me, and Elizabeth's interest in horses seemed to come out of nowhere. But will my students like this? Absolutely. It's a bright and breezy storyline, with juicy details about girls gossiping, jockeying for social position, and people embarrassing themselves right and left. It's not a philosophical, introspective book about deep life lessons, and that's a little bit of a relief. Graphic novels are popular in my library, and Pascal's series is quite the rage with fans of Libenson, Scrivan, and Russell.
No comments:
Post a Comment