by Judy Blume, read by Halley Feiffer
ages: 10+
First sentence: “It’s very foolish to laugh if you don’t know what’s funny in the first place.”
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Final thoughts: MEAN GIRLS. Oh, my heck. Mean, mean, mean, mean girls. Please, please, please DON’T EVER let my girls be a Wendy, Jill, or even a Linda.

This was hard, hard book for me to listen to; I picked up the audio book because I knew I’d be driving today and I wanted to be able to multi-task for the 48 Hour Book Challenge. But, between the reader — she did a fantastic job making everyone supremely annoying — and my recent re-reading of Harriet the Spy, this book was almost too much to take. (Ask M; I was shouting at the CD at some points!)

Basic plot, if you’re like me and escaped reading this as a kid: Jill is your average 5th grader, not really popular, not really disliked. Until one day, the Queen Bee, Wendy, throws a note on her desk, suggesting a nickname for the chubby girl, Linda, in class: Blubber. Jill — for reasons unspecified, but known to every pre-teen and teenage girl — goes along with this, helping Wendy and her cronies make Linda’s life downright miserable. Harsh, harsh, mean, harsh, bullying, terrible: why would anyone want to be friends with Wendy? Seriously. (Yes, I know I’m reading this as an adult. Hubby got all philosophic on me: it’s a Hobbsian world… kill or be killed. But, still.) Anyway, eventually, things get turned around on Jill: she stands up for Linda, in a manner of speaking, and then finds herself on the bad end of Wendy’s stick. Thankfully, she has the balls to stand up for herself, even though it terrifies her (and unlike Harriet — I liked the reference Blume made to Harriet in the book; nice touch — doesn’t really retaliate, but takes the higher ground), and things kind of move on. Though there’s no resolution for Linda, which is something I, personally, wanted.

I think that’s what made it hardest for me: I identified, and sympathized, with Linda. I wanted her to stand up for herself, or someone to come to her rescue. And the fact that she really didn’t get that bothered me. Immensely. It’s more realistic like that — kudos to Blume for keeping it real (I realized that Laurie Halse Anderson reminds me quite a bit of Judy Blume), but still, it made for a bitter pill going down.

That said, I’m going to encourage C to read this book. Shoot, I think I’m going to buy it for my girls. It’s something they need to read.