The Running Bibliophile

Jessica and the Brat Attack (Sweet Valley Twins, #29) created by Francine Pascal is about Jessica Wakefield volunteering to work one of the booths at the middle school's sixth grade fair. When she doesn't get assigned to the booth she had hoped for, Jessica steals Elizabeth's baby-sitting job and volunteers her twin to work the booth at the fair. The lesson kids can take away from this story is karma. Because Jessica was so underhanded in how she handled her situation, Jessica ended up in a worse scenario, and her classmates and sister ended up getting back at her. She should have just sucked it up and made the best of her original commitment. However, Jessica did end up learning that baby-sitting wasn't for her. I absolutely loved the Sweet Valley Twins book series in elementary and middle school. And, I am in the process of rereading my way through my childhood. Although I know I read Jessica and the Brat Attack in middle school, I had no recollection of...

As an adult, I am having a blast rereading my way through my childhood. The most recent book I read from my childhood is April Fool! (Sweet Valley Twins, #28) created by Francine Pascal. When I read the synopsis of the book before reading it, I vaguely remembered the premise. Was I ever surprised because I ended up not remembering any of the details. The synopsis of April Fool! (Sweet Valley Twins, #28) is that twin sisters Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield typically switch places on April Fools Day, and the twins switching places has become legendary with their classmates.  This year, Elizabeth and Jessica decide not to switch places but pretend that they actually had. It all goes down hill for Elizabeth when she keeps getting in trouble for things that Jessica had done. I felt extremely bad for Elizabeth because it seemed like she couldn't catch a break, but at a certain point, I realized that an elaborate scheme had to have been concocted to prank Elizabeth. It was ...

The Sweet Valley Twins book series is what made me an avid reader as a child. I couldn't get through each book fast enough. This book series is perfect for children between the ages eight and twelve, and I definitely urge people to introduce these books to their kids, especially those who aren't interested in reading. I wish they had been introduced to me a lot earlier. As part of my rereading my way through my childhood, I picked up The New Girl (Sweet Valley Twins, #6) created by Francine Pascal. What I love about this series is that it always seems to deal with real life issues that children might deal with and teaches a lesson. In The New Girl (Sweet Valley Twins, #6) , the lesson is that things aren't always what they seem and bullying isn't the answer. Kindness can go a long way, so don't act like a jerk towards people. Rereading this book as an adult, I didn't remember anything about this installment going into it. I think this was one of ...

In 1986, a movie called The Worst Witch was aired on television, and as a seven year old child, I absolutely fell in love with it. A few months ago, I thought about how much I loved it and decided to see if it was available on Netflix. It was not available, but it had been made into a television series back in 2017 and that was available. I did watch a few of the episodes and thought they had been done well. It made me research the original movie, and I found out that it was based on a book series from the 1970's. How I did not know this I'll never know, but I decided to buy a used copy from ThriftBooks.com.  When I received the book The Worst Witch (Worst Witch, #1) by Jill Murphy, I couldn't wait to read it and see how closely the original television movie compared to the book. I wasn't disappointed. The 1986 movie did a phenomenal job in adapting the book for television. The Worst Witch (Worst Witch, #1) by Jill Murphy is about twelve year old Mildred...

Jessi's Secret Language (The Baby-Sitters Club, #16) by Ann M. Martin is about eleven year old Jessi Ramsey agreeing to babysit two days a week for the Braddock kids, nine year old Haley and seven year old Matt. There is one catch, Jessi has to learn sign language because Matt is deaf. On top of this responsibility, Jessi auditions for her dance school's ballet production of Coppelia and lands the lead part, which adds even more rehearsal time to her already busy schedule. There is a lot that I enjoyed about Jessi's Secret Language (The Baby-Sitter's Club, #16) because it teaches kids many life lessons that even some adults could benefit learning about. Namely being accepting and inclusive of people with special needs . . . in this case, learning sign language so that Matt could easily communicate and play with others. I thought the book was well thought out showing how two different families dealt with having a deaf child . . . the Braddocks went out of ...

Sneaking Out (Sweet Valley Twins, #5) , created by Francine Pascal, picks up after the prior book Choosing Sides (Sweet Valley Twins #4) . All anyone at Sweet Valley Middle School can talk about is the upcoming Johnny Buck concert. Yet again, Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield's parents believe the twins are too young to go to the concert by themselves. Responsible Elizabeth accepts their decision, but wreck less Jessica will stop at nothing to get her way and attend the concert. For the most part, I liked this installment of the Sweet Valley Twin series. However, I really disliked how irresponsible Jessica acted all the way around. She takes on a dog sitting job despite being afraid of dogs but pushes the work of on everyone else. On top of that, she sneaks out of the house so she can go to the Johnny Buck concert. It never ceases to amaze me that she never seems to get grounded and that her parents don't see through her antics. I always liked Elizabeth better than Jessi...

The Unicorns have decided to start a cheerleading squad at Sweet Valley Middle School and call it the boosters. The caveat put forth by teachers are they must have open tryouts. Amy Sutton decides she wants to try out for the boosters. While that is happening, the basketball team is holding open tryouts as well, and the shortest boy in school, Ken Matthews, decides to try out. Choosing Sides (Sweet Valley Twins, #4) deals with bullying yet again. Do you see a theme in this series? Bullying seems to be most prominent in the middle school years, so it isn't surprising that the Sweet Valley Twins books deal with this subject a lot. The underlying themes are friendship and standing up for yourself in this edition. The Unicorns try to bully Amy because they don't want an unpopular, tomboy on the cheerleading squad. On top of that, Elizabeth is worried that if Amy makes the boosters, she won't have any more time to spend with her. Bruce Patman bullies Ken Matthews j...

The Mercandy mansion is said to be haunted because lights flicker in the windows at night, and the owners are never seen. Just ask anyone at Sweet Valley Middle School . . . they'll swear it is haunted. When Nora Mercandy moves into the house, rumors about her being a witch spread rapidly throughout the school. Elizabeth Wakefield sets out to solve the mystery of the Mercandy mansion and prove that Nora is just a normal girl. The major theme of The Haunted House (Sweet Valley Twins, # 3) created by Francine Pascal is bullying. Because of rumors about the Mercandy house, people jumped to conclusions about Nora and began picking on her. Lila was the ringleader of it all and was merciless. The underlying theme is to not jump to conclusions. The majority of the students at Sweet Valley Middle School made assumptions about the Mercandy family because of things they had seen and heard. Those assumptions were gossiped about and spread around. Everything was easily explained had ...

Identical twins Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield are auditioning for the lead role / solo in their dance recital. Elizabeth doesn't want to compete against her twin. Jessica knows she is the best dancer. The only problem is their ballet teacher never notices her because Elizabeth is teacher's pet. Who will land the lead role? Teacher's Pet (Sweet Valley Twins, #2) is told mainly from the view point of Jessica Wakefield, and we get to see her personality more in depth than we did in the first book of the series, Best Friends . Jessica's prominent personality trait is that she is selfish and that is carried throughout the entire series. With that being said, I totally empathized with her in the scenario of the book. Spoiler Alert:   Elizabeth lands the lead role in the dance recital even though she doesn't dance nearly as well as Jessica does. With that being said, Jessica was a prima donna in their first ballet class, and Madame Andre holds that against her. ...