Title: Anastasia At Your Service
Author: Lois Lowry
ISBN: 0395328659
Other Books in Series: Anastasia Krupnik; Anastasia Again!; Anastasia, Ask Your Analyst; Anastasia on her Own; Anastasia Has the Answers; Anastasia's Chosen Career; Anastasia at This Address; Anastasia Absolutely.
Plot Summary: Anastasia is bored, lonely, and short on funds. Her best friend, Steve, has left for the summer, and she is stuck at home in Boston with her professor father, her artist mother, her little brother Sam, and an allowance of two dollars per week. She gets a summer job working for a rich older woman, thinking she will be her companion, but ends up performing mainly domestic work. When she accidentally destroys a piece of the woman's silver and has to pay for it out of her wages, Anastasia finds that the job she applied for and the job she has now are two entirely different things.
Showing posts with label mild offensive language. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mild offensive language. Show all posts
Harriet the Spy
Title: Harriet the Spy
Author: Louise Fitzhugh
ISBN: 0440416795
Other Books in Series: The Long Summer, Sport
Plot Summary: Harriet is 11 years old, the precocious daughter of well-to-do parents growing up in Manhattan in the early sixties. Her best friend, Sport, has become an adult before his time in his efforts to run life for himself and his struggling writer father. Janie, Harriet's best female friend, experiments with various chemical solutions in an effort to shock her overly jovial mother. All three resist efforts to make them conform to societal norms, particularly the girls, who have less interest than their peers in being "feminine." In addition to taking notes on her classmates, parents, cook, maid, and live-in caretaker, a stern woman she nicknames Ole Golly, Harriet has what she calls her regular "spy route": a motley collection of people she observes covertly, for no other reason but that she finds them interesting. However, Harriet's carefully constructed double life is about to come to an end. After Ole Golly and her new boyfriend take Harriet out for a night on the town, Harriet's outraged parents fire her on the spot; she subsequently marries the boyfriend and moves to Canada. She is discovered in the house of one of her regular spyees and sent packing, never to return again. To make matters even worse, Harriet's classmates discover and read her diary, an event which turns even Sport and Janie against her. Harriet must now figure out how to live without the woman who was her main support, conform to her parents' social expectations, deal with changes in her routine - and, most importantly, mend fences with her two best friends.
Author: Louise Fitzhugh
ISBN: 0440416795
Other Books in Series: The Long Summer, Sport
Plot Summary: Harriet is 11 years old, the precocious daughter of well-to-do parents growing up in Manhattan in the early sixties. Her best friend, Sport, has become an adult before his time in his efforts to run life for himself and his struggling writer father. Janie, Harriet's best female friend, experiments with various chemical solutions in an effort to shock her overly jovial mother. All three resist efforts to make them conform to societal norms, particularly the girls, who have less interest than their peers in being "feminine." In addition to taking notes on her classmates, parents, cook, maid, and live-in caretaker, a stern woman she nicknames Ole Golly, Harriet has what she calls her regular "spy route": a motley collection of people she observes covertly, for no other reason but that she finds them interesting. However, Harriet's carefully constructed double life is about to come to an end. After Ole Golly and her new boyfriend take Harriet out for a night on the town, Harriet's outraged parents fire her on the spot; she subsequently marries the boyfriend and moves to Canada. She is discovered in the house of one of her regular spyees and sent packing, never to return again. To make matters even worse, Harriet's classmates discover and read her diary, an event which turns even Sport and Janie against her. Harriet must now figure out how to live without the woman who was her main support, conform to her parents' social expectations, deal with changes in her routine - and, most importantly, mend fences with her two best friends.
Monster
Title: Monster
Author: Walter Dean Myers
ISBN: 0060280778
Plot Summary: Steve Harmon is a 16-year-old African American teenager who has been arrested and is on trial for the murder of a shopkeeper. Before his arrest, he was active in his school's film club, and frequently fantasizes about making a movie about the trial, his experiences in jail, and his own inner thoughts. Although the reader is initially not sure whether Steve is guilty or not, we come to see through Steve's diary and "screenplay" of his experiences that there is more to the case that first meets the eye, and that Steve may not be a perpetrator of a heinous crime, but rather an unwitting victim of circumstance and a victim of a justice system whose scale is tipped against poor, young minority males.
Author: Walter Dean Myers
ISBN: 0060280778
Plot Summary: Steve Harmon is a 16-year-old African American teenager who has been arrested and is on trial for the murder of a shopkeeper. Before his arrest, he was active in his school's film club, and frequently fantasizes about making a movie about the trial, his experiences in jail, and his own inner thoughts. Although the reader is initially not sure whether Steve is guilty or not, we come to see through Steve's diary and "screenplay" of his experiences that there is more to the case that first meets the eye, and that Steve may not be a perpetrator of a heinous crime, but rather an unwitting victim of circumstance and a victim of a justice system whose scale is tipped against poor, young minority males.
Clueless
Title: Clueless
Author/Director: Amy Heckerling
Cast: Alicia Silverstone (Cher), Stacey Dash (Dionne), Paul Rudd (Josh), Donald Faison (Murray), Elisa Donovan (Amber), Breckin Myer (Travis), Jeremy Sisto (Elton), Dan Hedaya (Mr. Horowitz), Wallace Shawn (Mr. Hall), Twink Caplan (Miss Geist), Brittany Murphy (Tai).
ASIN: B00001MXXE (DVD)
Plot Summary: Cher Horowitz, a rich, spoiled Beverly Hills teen, enjoys shopping, hanging out with her friend Dionne, and playing matchmaker to all the people in her life. However, she's not as good at it as she thinks. Although Cher successfully matches two of her teachers together, when she tries to get Tai, the new girl in town, together with Elton, an obnoxious rich kid with a famous father, she finds out too late that Elton is interested in her instead, and Tai only has eyes for Travis, a good-hearted if slightly dim slacker. When Cher tries to pick out a love interest for herself, Christian, the object of her affections, turns out not to be as interested in her - or in her gender - as she had hoped. Throughout Cher's matchmaking misadventures, Josh, her ex-stepbrother who is living with Cher and her lawyer father, provides sardonic commentary, often provoking Cher into arguments in the process. However, it is not until Tai sets her sights on Josh that Cher realizes two things: first, that she has less of a clue than she thought about matchmaking, and second, that she may not hate Josh so much after all.
Author/Director: Amy Heckerling
Cast: Alicia Silverstone (Cher), Stacey Dash (Dionne), Paul Rudd (Josh), Donald Faison (Murray), Elisa Donovan (Amber), Breckin Myer (Travis), Jeremy Sisto (Elton), Dan Hedaya (Mr. Horowitz), Wallace Shawn (Mr. Hall), Twink Caplan (Miss Geist), Brittany Murphy (Tai).
ASIN: B00001MXXE (DVD)
Plot Summary: Cher Horowitz, a rich, spoiled Beverly Hills teen, enjoys shopping, hanging out with her friend Dionne, and playing matchmaker to all the people in her life. However, she's not as good at it as she thinks. Although Cher successfully matches two of her teachers together, when she tries to get Tai, the new girl in town, together with Elton, an obnoxious rich kid with a famous father, she finds out too late that Elton is interested in her instead, and Tai only has eyes for Travis, a good-hearted if slightly dim slacker. When Cher tries to pick out a love interest for herself, Christian, the object of her affections, turns out not to be as interested in her - or in her gender - as she had hoped. Throughout Cher's matchmaking misadventures, Josh, her ex-stepbrother who is living with Cher and her lawyer father, provides sardonic commentary, often provoking Cher into arguments in the process. However, it is not until Tai sets her sights on Josh that Cher realizes two things: first, that she has less of a clue than she thought about matchmaking, and second, that she may not hate Josh so much after all.
Go Ask Alice
Title: Go Ask Alice
Author: Beatrice Sparks (writing as "Anonymous")
ISBN: 1416914633
Plot Summary: The anonymous narrator, a teenage girl, comes from a good home, but feels out of place at home and in school. At first, she deals with typical teenage concerns: dieting and weight loss, boys, meeting new friends when her father moves. Then, she is introduced to drugs at a party, where she is unwittingly slipped a dose of LSD in her soda as part of a drinking/drug game. In short order, her life spirals downwards into a morass of meaningless sex, shady companions, and ever more dangerous drugs. Her diary entries disintegrate along with her life, degenerating into angry, almost meaningless stream of consciousness written on whatever she can find. She eventually gets cleaned up and moves back in with her parents, but finds the "good" kids will no longer associate with her, and her drug-using acquaintances threaten her for being a snitch. After being slipped yet another dose of LSD against her will, she winds up in a mental hospital. Eventually her condition improves, and she again returns home, determined to rebuild her life - but it is too late.
Author: Beatrice Sparks (writing as "Anonymous")
ISBN: 1416914633
Plot Summary: The anonymous narrator, a teenage girl, comes from a good home, but feels out of place at home and in school. At first, she deals with typical teenage concerns: dieting and weight loss, boys, meeting new friends when her father moves. Then, she is introduced to drugs at a party, where she is unwittingly slipped a dose of LSD in her soda as part of a drinking/drug game. In short order, her life spirals downwards into a morass of meaningless sex, shady companions, and ever more dangerous drugs. Her diary entries disintegrate along with her life, degenerating into angry, almost meaningless stream of consciousness written on whatever she can find. She eventually gets cleaned up and moves back in with her parents, but finds the "good" kids will no longer associate with her, and her drug-using acquaintances threaten her for being a snitch. After being slipped yet another dose of LSD against her will, she winds up in a mental hospital. Eventually her condition improves, and she again returns home, determined to rebuild her life - but it is too late.
Does My Head Look Big in This?
Title: Does My Head Look Big in This?
Author: Randa Abdel-Fattah
ISBN: 978-0439922333
Plot Summary: Amal, a Palestinian-Australian teenage girl, decides to start wearing the hijab, the traditional Muslim head covering for women. She does so despite concerns from her immigrant parents, friction from other students at her elite private high school, and even job discrimination. Ultimately, she is able to get the other people in her life to come to terms with her decision, but not without some sacrifices and conflicts along the way.
Author: Randa Abdel-Fattah
ISBN: 978-0439922333
Plot Summary: Amal, a Palestinian-Australian teenage girl, decides to start wearing the hijab, the traditional Muslim head covering for women. She does so despite concerns from her immigrant parents, friction from other students at her elite private high school, and even job discrimination. Ultimately, she is able to get the other people in her life to come to terms with her decision, but not without some sacrifices and conflicts along the way.
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