Hang on Vicky

The other day I was organizing our garage.

Not so exciting.

But then I came across my boxes and boxes (and boxes) of books. I’m saving them for the library I’m going to have one day – sigh.

One of the boxes contained my “young adult” novels.

Now there’s a genre I abandoned decades ago.

I didn’t mean to. But my high school teachers gave me books for homework – books that were different from the ones I wanted to read. In college I declared a literature major, so, again, I read the books that were “assigned.” Then law school – more required reading. When I finally returned to reading for pleasure, I was in my late twenties. I never crossed paths with the “young adult” section in the bookstore again.

In the garage, I took a seat on a plastic storage bin and started thumbing through the pile. I began to wonder if any of the authors of my childhood had continued to publish young adult books after I’d grown up. That afternoon, I logged onto Amazon.com.

Robert Cormier: He wrote The Chocolate War, Beyond the Chocolate War, I am the Cheese, 8 Plus 1, The Bumblebee Flies Anyway. I remember those stories as if I’d read them yesterday. I can still quote some of the passages. Turns out Cormier has continued to write. One book is about a teenage serial killer. It had a whole row of yellow stars on Amazon’s rating system, but I think I’m glad I missed that one.

Cynthia Voigt: Homecoming, Dicey’s Song, A Solitary Blue, The Runner – Voigt hit up intense topics in her books, especially child abandonment. I found a bio on her and began reading up on her life as a writer and teacher. I wish she had a blog.

Scott O’Dell: O’Dell won a Newberry Medal for Island of the Blue Dolphins. He died in 1989, but I’ll definitely revisit O’Dell’s books when I have kids of my own.

Francine Pascal: Admitting I devoured the Sweet Valley High series in Jr. High is like admitting that I read People magazine every week as an adult. Totally embarrassing but what the heck, I looked up Francine Pascal too. Her Sweet Valley High series is now a DVD series.

I saved my absolute favorite young adult author for the last search: Madeleine L’Engle.

I enjoyed all L’Engle’s books, but most of all, more than anything, I loved her Austin family series: Meet the Austins, The Moon by Night, and A Ring of Endless Light. I read those books until the binders broke, the covers ripped, and the pages came unglued. Vicky Austin struggled with the mixed emotions of love triangles, the difficulty of building character, and the frustration of being stuck between girlhood and womanhood. She was so real to me I think I thought I was her (or vice versa). Oh – and her love interest, Adam Eddington – I had a crush on him too.

Twenty years later, I began clicking through the books L’Engle has written since I was fourteen. I stumbled on Troubling a Star.

Oh
My
Gosh

It’s another book in the Austin family series.

As fast as my mouse could move, I hit “Search Inside.” Vicky had gone to visit Adam Eddington in Antarctica. She was stranded on an ice burg. I read quickly but slowly – do you ever do that? – savoring each and every word yet anxiously awaiting the next one.

Anyway, I flipped the next page (in the virtual sense) and was on the edge of my seat when . . . the excerpt was over.

AHHHH!

I ordered the book.

Hang on Vicky!

I’m on my way!