Poisonwood- I am so mad at Rachel right now. She just used shapoopie in a sentence (as a substitute for a word she didn't understand, I think) and now I have that horrible song stuck in my head. And if that's not bad enough, it's the Family Guy version. sigh.

My favorite, favorite old-timey YA novel, the one I'll go back to over and over and over and over x eleventy-million, is Daddy Long-Legs.

I love Judy finding her way socially, discovering that she's not just a smart-ass but actually smart, finding herself politically ("Hooray! I'm a Fabian!"), being a total but enthusiastic doof at sports, sneaking off campus to go skating and eat lobster with her friends, finding her voice as a writer, navigating flirtations and school dances and love and rigid social barriers and finding a space where she belongs.

Also, the whole thing is short enough that there's no need for an abridged/unabridged discussion, and it has pictures! Well, doodles. Which is almost even better.

I'm also just slightly bitter that there have only been two movie versions and they were both Not The Novel on an epic scale.

I've just started re-reading the Little House books based on discussions here. I'm on Farmer Boy (now #2 in the series) and all I have to say is, my g*d, the food.

I love Daddy Long Legs!

I remember several years ago chatting with my cousin's wife about the reading habits of her eldest daughter (who just got married last fall--eek!!). The two of them would read books out loud together, which I thought was awesome considering Danielle was already in middle school by then, and she was saying how they were looking for more books to read. I happened to mention DLL to her, and at the next holiday get-together, she thanked me a million times for the rec, since they both loved it.

all I have to say is, my g*d, the food.

That one, and Little House in the Big Woods, tend to wallow in the food porn, don't they? Actually, food porn is prevalent in most of the books--Laura's joy in the canned peaches in Shores of Silver Lake, the blow-out belated Christmas feast at the end of the Long Winter, the bliss of real cold lemonade in Little Town (which also had the novelty of the orange for dessert at the dinner party and the Ladies Aid Society Thanksgiving dinner with the actual roasted pig).

Compare that with the girls' ecstasy over getting the single piece of hard candy and the tin cup from Santa (via Mr. Edwards, IIRC) in Little House on the Prairie, and the rejoicing over Pa's bringing home the pail of wheat that he forcibly bought from Almanzo in The Long Winter.

Yeah, they all have great food (and the work that women must have done to produce it is just beyond my comprehension), but the meals (and sheer amount that they eat) in Farmer Boy are truly incredible.

Oh, I remember all the details about the food! But the pig's bladder as balloon is still my single clearest memory of ... whichever of the first two books it was in. That just astounded me.

My very favorite YA novel, which I still reread joyfully, is Mr. and Mrs. Bo Jo Jones. So much love. The tone, the voice, the story -- it all works, even forty-some years later.

I think Laura had such vivid memories of food because the family had so many times of near starvation. Remember when she had her first orange?

I recently reread Roller Skates for the umpteenth time and realized that Lucinda Wyman is probably the most vivid fictional character in my head. I can close my eyes and see her swooping through old New York in her dress and pinafore, with her hat held on by elastic and her cropped black hair.

but the meals (and sheer amount that they eat) in Farmer Boy are truly incredible.

Definitely true. I also love the way she writes Almanzo as being such a typical little boy, always hungry, full of high spirits, but also more than a little thoughtful and very clever (the way he wins his bet during the sheep shearing is simply brilliant).

Rather sad to think that, later in his life, he came to view himself as a failure, from his inability to maintain a profitable farm due to his weakened leg from diptheria and the lack of sons to help him run the farm. (Pa had similar problems due to the lack of male progeny.)

Oh, I remember all the details about the food! But the pig's bladder as balloon is still my single clearest memory of ... whichever of the first two books it was in. That just astounded me.

That's Big Woods, where they also fry the pig's tale and make the snow syrup.