#1956Club - Fifteen, an iconic teen novel of the 1950s by Beverly Cleary

The 1956 Club is a meme created by Simon at Stuck in a Book and Karen at Kaggsy's Bookish Ramblings to showcase books published in a specific year.  

Title: Fifteen

Author: Beverly Cleary

Publication: 1956, William Morrow hardcover (2007 paperback edition)

Genre: Young Adult

Description: Jane Purdy is fifteen and yearns for the glamorous life of a magazine teenager – a boyfriend and dates and the perfect outfit for every occasion.  Instead, she is stuck babysitting for spoiled children and watching smug Marcy Stokes drive by in convertibles with whatever boy she wants.  Then Jane meets cute Stan Crandall when he is delivering dog food where she is babysitting and he asks her out!  Jane is thrilled but isn’t sure how to behave, what to wear, or even if her parents will give permission – or even worse, embarrass her when in front of him!  More importantly to the reader, Jane needs to develop enough self-confidence that she doesn’t hide her real feelings and self.  

Debutante Hill (Book Review)

Title: Debutante Hill
Author: Lois Duncan

Publication Information: Lizzie Skurnick Books, 2013, trade paperback (originally published 1958)

Genre: Young Adult

Plot: Pretty blonde Lynn Chambers anticipates a fun senior year although her boyfriend Paul and her older brother Ernie have left for college.  Then a pushy neighbor organizes a debutante season of parties for the 12th graders from the more affluent part of town, the Hill.  Lynn’s egalitarian father persuades her not to participate, leaving Lynn depressed and excluded from the social whirl. 

Amelia Elizabeth Walden, YA author

I thought few people remember Walden’s teen novels these days so I was surprised and pleased when I read last fall on Kristin Cashore’s blog that she had been nominated for the Assembly on Literature for Adolescents’ (“ALAN”) inaugural Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award. I read every one of Walden’s 40+ books I could find in the 70s and enjoyed them, although admittedly some were very formulaic. They are quite dated now and at times seem sexist because while her message ostensibly is that young women can do anything, her male characters often belittle them and say that until they learn how to be womanly women they cannot truly be successful/know themselves/succeed, etc. Despite this, which annoyed me even as a teen, I liked her books a lot. She wrote several different genres: spy novels, sport themes (of these my favorite is My Sister Mike), drama theme (I enjoyed a trilogy about a young woman named Miranda, although the man she ends up with was one of the most condescending creatures ever, her director/producer), and a few general (Waverly, about a girl who leaves her beloved family ranch to attend the all women's college her deceased mother had loved so much). Her characters love the outdoors and, long before Title IX, enjoyed sports ranging from skiing, basketball, tennis, horseback riding, softball, swimming, field hockey, and scuba diving.