Page 11 of A Very Snowed In New Year
From: [email protected]
You got it. I’ll mail that out tomorrow.
Hey, this might be weird of me to ask, but I have a feeling you’d know—should my eleven-year-old sister be reading a Judy Blume book? She’s extremely precocious and loves to read, but I Googled “Judy Blume books” just now and I’m…not loving some of what I’m seeing.
From: [email protected]
I loved Judy Blume when I was a kid! Although I actually read most of her books before I was ten. I was kind of an advancedreader. If your sister is readingAre You There God? It’s Me, Margaret., then she’s the perfect age for that book. The heroine is also eleven. If she’s readingForever…orWifey, then…you probably wouldn’t be happy about it. However, I firmly believe it depends on the maturity of the reader.
I tore through so many of my mom’s old YA romance books on my summer and winter vacations when I was ten that when I was eleven, my great-aunt Mel secretly gave me old romance books from her collection. They were meant for readers sixteen and up, according to the publishers. Like, she had me reading her tattered old copy ofValley of the Dollswhen I was twelve. And then came Jackie Collins!
But yeah.
Obviously I turned out great, but if your sister’s readingForever…, she might not be ready to learn about “Ralph.” So maybe you should get her something else to read.
From: [email protected]
Yeah… I found out that she is in fact readingForever…. I looked it up, and you are correct—I am not happy about it and I am not ready for her to learn about Ralph. I need to order her some other books to read before I leave. Do you have any recs? She doesn’t like sci-fi or fantasy stuff right now. Nothing paranormal. No vampires or werewolves. She likes to read about people who stay people all the time, and she likes kissing books. I just need to make sure the characters don’t do anything more than kiss. Or interact with body parts that are named after guys.
I guess I should mention that I’m her much older brother and her only sibling. Our mum isn’t interested in anything that was written after the early 1960s, and my dad only readsThe Sunday Times. This feels like something I need to take responsibility for.
From: [email protected]
Awww! You’re a good big brother :) I always wished I had an older brother to look out for me. Instead I was gifted with one who’s twelve years younger, and he has made it his mission in life to annoy me.
Boy, did you ask the right person for kissing-book recs! But I’m guessing that if your sister is readingForever…then she has already read the books I’d recommend first—Jenny Han’s To All the Butts I’ve Loved Before and The Summer I Turned Pretty series. Also, the Baby-Sitters Club series. I’m guessing she read Dork Diaries and Beverly Cleary’s First Love series a long time ago.Flippedis wonderful, but she’s probably read it. There’s a lot of paranormal YA out there now, so there’s kind of a void in the current YA romance space for preteens, unfortunately. I read all of Jane Austen’s books when I was eleven. Can you find out if she’s read any of those first? If she has, we’ll get into the deep cuts.
Don’t worry—I got you :)
From: [email protected]
Um. I hit Send before proofreading. The Jenny Han series is To All the BOYS I’ve Loved Before. Autocorrect fail.
From: [email protected]
Haha. Don’t worry about it—we’ve all been there.
Yeah, my sis is eleven years younger than me. It’s an interesting sort of relationship, huh? This actually kind of runs in my family. My mum has a lot of siblings, but her youngest brother is a lot younger than her.
I asked and can confirm that she has already read all of those books you mentioned. I have to go out of town for work in a couple of days, so I’d like to order her some books ASAP, or I’m afraid she’ll get into my mum’s copy ofLady Chatterley’s Loverbefore the new year.
Thanks so much for your help—this is really great.
From: [email protected]
