Review Detail

Young Adult Fiction 373
Interesting look at 1950s social mores
(Updated: August 12, 2024)
Overall rating
 
4.7
Plot
 
5.0
Characters
 
5.0
Writing Style
 
4.0
Illustrations/Photos (if applicable)
 
N/A
Paula Levy is being raised in 1956 in a middle-class family in Queens. Her mother was fourteen during the Great Depression, and her father had to flee Nazi Germany, so they are not very sympathetic to what utter DRAGS they are. They make her wear pleated skirts and sweater sets, and care about her academic work. They even make comments about the rock music that has recently enthralled her like "Music she calls it. I thought the furnace had exploded!" This is why it is so important that she has made a "cool" friend at school, Barbara. Barbara has blonde streaks in her hair, wears makeup, and wears tight skirts and sweaters. While the two bond over a love of rock music and Catcher in the Rye, Barbara can't possibly been seen in public with such a drip. Paula is a little concerned; her neighbor Margaret, whose parents knew her father in Germany, is a goodie two shoes who never hesitates to tattle on her. When rumors swirl that Elvis will be on the Milton Berle show, Barbara makes plans to go to the studio and meet him, but Paula learns when she watches the show that it was filmed in California. She eventually visits Barbara's apartment, which is disheveled, and learns that Barbara's mother is remarried. After Margaret shows Paula a picture of her father with another woman and baby girl, she has Barbara help her look through family pictures to find out more information, after a perusal of the phone book in the local drugstore doesn't turn up any information. Mrs. Levy is appalled to find Barbara in the home, and the parents sit down and tell her that yes, the father had another family, but they were swept up in the Holocaust, and no, she can never see that tramp again! After Barbara is caught kissing 19-year-old Billy in her living room, she is hauled to the doctor to make sure she is not pregnant, and threatened with an all girls' Catholic school. Since the girls are so fed up with their lives, they decide to run away. At first, Memphis sounds like a good idea, but Paula has questions. She suggests going to Cleveland to live with her Aunt, but Barbara thinks that sounds like Nowheresville. Instead, they settle on going to Hoboken and staying with Barbara's estranged father. After withdrawing $285 from Paula's savings, the two take off, and find the father's run down apartment easily enough. It turns out he is a jazz musician, but Barbara doesn't really want to stay with him. The girls return to the city but make the mistake of talking to some sailors on leave. The sailors make advances, and the police accuse the girls of "plying their trade" and get set to arrest them. Luckily, Barbara's father has alerted her mother, who shows up at the bus station. There's quite an altercation, and even the parents start to throw insults at each other. In the end, things are worked out, and because Paula has stood up to her parents, they start to get along a little better.

Good Points
I have read many, many teen novels that were written at this time period, and Langbert manages to capture the essence of those books while adding a modern twist. Books of that era were all from the point of view of the "good" girls. That was the aspiration. Girls like Paula with tight sweaters? No nice girl would have anything to do with them. To see Paula portrayed as a girl of similar breeding who was intrigued rather than repelled by Barbara's interests and background was quite fun. Young readers won't understand quite how revolutionary this is, but it gave quite a twist to the overarching feelings of the era.

Paula's not a bad kid. She does well in school. She wears the dweeby clothes her mother buys for her, even though she has (shocked gasp!) quit buttoning the top button of her blouses and has been turning the collar up! She' understandably miffed with Margaret, who is rather self righteous, especially when her mother makes her stay with Margaret's family for ten days while the mother is in Cleveland helping the aunt with a new baby. Paula's father couldn't possibly take care of her. The running away plans are fascinating, and I imagine that there were a lot of kids during the 1950s who did run away. Remember, Paula's mother grew up at a time where, if families couldn't take care of their children, children were often left to fend for themselves. Paula did have a bit of understanding that the plan wasn't the best one, which was good to see.

There are plenty of cultural touchpoints; there would have been many parents who survived the Holocaust, and they wouldn't necessarily have talked about what they lost. I could have used a few more tiny historical details, but there were enough, and Mrs. Levy's solid middle class presence and values were perfect.

I'd love to see more books about teens and tweens in the 1950s; I would have expected a lot in the 1970s or 80s as nostalgic pieces, but there never were very many. For more glimpses at this era of bobby socks and Poodle skirts, pick up Frazier's Mighty Inside, Walsh's Red Scare: A Graphic Novel, Crowder's Mazie, or Elliott's Suspect Red.
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