Lost Classics of Teen Lit: Name That Book!

 “I’m pretty sure this one’s from the early 2000s. It’s historical fiction set after the Vietnam war. A boy in middle school learns to play chess from a teacher who was a veteran of the war. The boy had a baby sister called Cassie who died, possibly in a car accident? He remembers she had hair like peach fuzz. I can’t remember if the teacher ends up dating his mother or something, maybe that happened? It was one of those quiet, slice-of-life-y novels that I ate up well after I was supposed to be too old for midgrade novels, and I’d like to reread it.”  A Long Way Home by Nancy Price Graff, at last found by the original requestor, Miss Amy! 

 “I read this paperback book in the 1970-71 school year, when I was eleven. A mother was escaping the Nazis with her three children; I don’t remember where the father was. The mother had a carriage for the baby, and I think had to store other supplies such as food and clothes in the carriage too. At one point they were on a train packed with others attempting to escape. In order to fit more people onto the train, a man tried to throw the carriage off, but the baby was still in it, and the mother had to fight to save the baby. (This scene really scared me, which is why I remember it.) At the end the family somehow made it safely to Switzerland, where they were taken in by some relatives. The book was my introduction to the horror of the Holocaust. I think it was written in the first-person by the mother, but whether it was true or fictional, I don’t know.”  Ordeal by Fire by Anne Wahle and Roul Tunley

“It was a YA or an adult book, a memoir, so I tried to be very secretive when I read this one at age 10 or so. (That would’ve been the late 90s, but the book was probably older.) It was in first person, I think, and it was the story of this girl growing up in the late 60s or 70s, and it was mostly about sex. She eventually gets pregnant, goes to college, gives birth, gives the baby up for adoption, and Begins To Move On.

Things I remember vividly: Boys cornering her at a park or in the woods, getting her blouse open, and writing “SLUT” on her breasts in permanent marker.  The main character marking out when she could and couldn’t have sex in a calendar.  One of her friends writing something like “nothing lezzie but I love you” in her yearbook.  Her getting pregnant, wanting no one to know, and taping her stomach down with duct tape (?).  She gives birth, gets to see the baby girl once (even though she’s not supposed to), and mentions how weird and empty her stomach feels just after it. And then, she joins her college campus newspaper, and one of the stories they’re running when she first goes in to ask about joining is called something like “Incest: One Daughter Speaks.” The cover was maybe a buff colour, and I can sort of picture a silhouette of a woman on it, but I don’t know if I’ve got it correct.” Confirmed: Grown-Up Fast By Betsy Israel 

Then there’s one set in a girls’ school which I remember only by a chapter starting with the headmistress or just a teacher saying that a guest lecturer “will be with us on Chuesday week.” [“a week from this Tuesday”—in an ultra-twee accent.] Suggestion:  Is That You, Miss Blue? By M.E. Kerr 

Updated 3/25/18: Mama’s Bank Account by Kathryn Forbes.