INZANESVILLE * STAR DUST

Inzanesville by Jo Ann Beard - I loved this book, but I don't know if everyone else will. It's a book about being a 14 year old 9th grade girl in Junior High in the 1970s. She's the narrator, and she and her friends are kind of nerdy in the times before we had the word nerdy to describe ourselves. So they were unpopular. Because the cheerleaders and girls who have money and/or confidence are popular. Just like today, except maybe not, because in today's times all the adults care so much. In our day, if they were caring that much, most of us didn't know it. It was the 70s, it was just that once, and it won't be coming back. But maybe everyone feels that way about their 14 year old selves and their place in time at that time. Just like in Midnight in Paris, if you connected with it. I love this girl's voice, and loved this book. It's conversational, not sarcastic, honest, sometimes funny and wry.

Star Dust (1940) - I'm loving my old movies lately. The black and white modern times were the ones I'd go back to (ala Midnight in Paris- again), and this one starred Linda Darnell as a small town girl from Arkansas who longs to go to Hollywood. A Hollywood scout comes to town to look for talent, but tells her that she's too young. What he doesn't know is that she's very clever, so she gets there. She's so pretty, and the landscape and interiors of 1940 are real 1940, so I loved it. I love to think about how old my mom and dad and grandparents and aunts and uncles were when the movie was showing at the theaters and how Auntie Kaye and Uncle Bob would have remembered the movie and the names of the stars and supporting actors. I think about where they were in their lives and what they were feeling, especially now that I know the family secrets that may or may not have been secrets then, but were definitely affecting their lives, and were things they didn't bring with them as they grew into adulthood. Those times I want to go back to were dark times, too. I wonder if my 14 year old narrator of Inzanesville watched old movies. I'll bet she did. She just didn't get around to talking about them.