Did Anyone Else Live for Sweet Valley High?

Before Sweet Valley High: The TV Show, there was Sweet Valley High: The Very Fabulous Young Adult Novel Series by the Incomparable Francine Pascal. Yesterday when I was strolling back from my morning coffee ritual, I happened upon a box, filled with books, sitting on a curb. I vaguely remembered a stoop sale in this exact location the day before, so I guessed that these were the leftover books. I stooped down myself to have a look. And what I found transported me to 1983-86. To my own childhood bookshelf. This stoop sale woman, whoever and wherever she was, had placed chunks of my exact childhood book collection (and my favorite ones at that) in this box on this sidewalk.

I was completely mesmerized. She must have been close to my same-exact age (and she clearly had my same-exact taste), because the editions of these books were the editions I had owned, and read, all day long and late into the night, in my room, my backyard, at my dad's apartment, on airplanes, and wherever I went. Flipping through them, I saw copyrights from 1983, and yellowed pages, and a child's precise bold handwriting declaring her name, her middle school's name, and her classroom number. I saw growing-brittle covers with illustrations of guys in high-waisted slim-fitting jeans and feathered hair leaning languorously against lockers, and the women who loved them.

In this box, there were the classics: volumes of Sweet Valley High, Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield adorning every cover in their blond perfection; barrettes to distinguish straight-laced Liz (remember her preppy boyfriend Todd?) from party-girl Jess (I obviously related to Liz and envied Jess for the duration of my entire adolescence). (And also, when I started reading SVH as those of us in-the-know used to call it, Francine had only written up to volume 4 or 5, which I quickly breezed through, so after that I was reading them as she was writing them like kids do with Harry Potter today, only she churned them out so quickly (although never fast enough! Waiting for the next volume was always agony...) it seemed very faced-paced and exciting, and I remember going to my local small-town bookstore to put my name on a list to be called when the new one arrived.) The only slightly-less-obvious Sweet Valley Twins, detailing the girls' younger, middle school years. The lesser known (underrated!) selections: LOVING (Caitlin, Love Trilogy #1), Created by Francine Pascal of Sweet Valley Fame (which, I sort of recall that although she was the creator of many books, someone else wrote them, and I'm still not exactly sure what that means re: what she did do, but what I am still sure of is that I don't care if she ever wrote one word - she will always be a Young Adult Genius in my book); You're Going Out There a Kid, But You're Coming Back a Star! by Linda Hirsch; and more, so many more, it was overwhelming.

I was lost in this book world for who-knows-how-long, and people would pass, and would assume, rationally, that there must be something really good in this box because here is this girl (me) who is so super-absorbed in its contents. First a punky-slacker teenage boy walking his dog passed, and asked if there was anything good as he started looking through the box before quickly realizing, "This isn't my genre." Then an elderly woman approached and I thought she may have some granddaughters so I started enthusiastically semi-shouting: "Do you know any 8 or 9 year old girls? Because these books are amazing, they really are just, just--" and this is where I sort-of lost my breath at the degree of amazingness contained within this little box. Apparently, she didn't know any 8 or 9 year old girls.

I went on Amazon today to look up some of the titles, and many of them are out-of-print, and most don't have "cover images available." I don't know where all my copies of these books are - maybe they are in some storage box growing moldy at the back of my mom's closet that has been designated for excess stuff; maybe I donated them to the local small-town library when my parents sold the house I grew up in; maybe when I was a little older than I was then and not quite old enough to appreciate them, I threw them in the garbage to make room for some important adult book or high school memorabilia, like a cheerleading trophy, or an academic achievement award.

But here's the thing. All those books remind me of a time when I could get so absorbed, literally lost, in a story. Which doesn't happen so much when you are an adult who pays bills, and has other adult-type responsibilities and concerns. And here's the other thing. All these stories, what they mostly had in common was a basic storyline similar to the Growing Pains episode where Carol Seaver comes back to school after summer break and she is suddenly, to her classmates' shock and surprise, simultaneous cool, and hot; she has metamorphosed from her former dorky caterpillar self into a new and improved beautiful butterfly self.

I took one of the books home. It is called The Terrible Truth and the cover looked familiar, but when I read the back of the book, I knew. It is a story about a girl who is about to start sixth grade, and she has matching shoe-and-purse sets for each day of the week, and she vows to act like a grown-up. I remember reading this book the summer before I started sixth grade, and Middle School. I remember lying on my bed reading this book, planning my first-day-of-school outfit, and wishing that I had matching shoe-and-purse sets for every day of the week, and hoping that I would turn into a grown-up and get all the things that went along with that - popularity, a boyfriend (who would maybe have feathered hair? and maybe we would slip our hands in each other's back jeans pockets, and walk down the halls that way, amidst lockers, in between classes, and before pep rallies); I might even be a cheerleader one day, or class president, like the characters in my books...it seemed to me that sixth grade, that Middle School, meant everything was possible.

I took that book home to remind me of me. Of who I was and who I still, deep down, am. Of how much I loved to read, and how I could get lost in a story. Of that pre-Middle School feeling of hope, restlessness, anticipation, longing; that feeling that everything was, and can still be, possible.