Put down the book and pick up a sandwich

The blogosphere is abuzz today with news of what Random House has done with the bastardized "updated" re-release of Sweet Valley High, and I'll feel lonely and left out if I don't chime in with my $20 (inflation, donchaknow) on what it all means to me.

I have fond memories of trips to the library in my pre-teen years (my dad didn't believe in buying books when we could borrow them, which is why I also have sad memories of being the odd girl out at the school book fair every year, and probably also why my home is now overcrowded with books that I own and refuse to part with), hunkering down between the aisles with a SVH, the next two in the series lying in my lap waiting to be checked out, and getting lost in the Valley of Sweetness while my mom took her time trying to hunt down some books my dad hadn't already read. I also remember trying to hide them from my mom so she wouldn't open one up and accidentally land on a page where Jessica came onto Bruce until he felt her up, or Todd mistook Jessica for Elizabeth and like, totally made out with her, because, scandalous!

These books were my 90210, my OC, my Gossip Girl, way before any of those shows were twinkles in their makers' eyes. Did they make me feel inferior as I compared myself to the "perfect size 6" twins and their sunny, drama-filled lives? Sure they did, but I had enough of being made to feel inferior by just about everybody around me at the time, anyway, so I didn't much let that part get me down. For me, it was pure escapism. I lived vicariously through those twins. I identified more with Elizabeth, naturally, because I was just that much of a goody-goody, but I wished so hard that I could be more like Jessica, until she inevitably almost got date-raped, and I'd be thankful I was more like Elizabeth again. Sweet Valley High = good times.

I don't think I'm outraged by the changes--Elizabeth's blog instead of newspaper column, a Jeep Wrangler replacing the prized Fiat Spider their daddy gave them for their Sweet 16, and, most notable/controversial, their downsizing to a "perfect size 4"--the way some fans are, but it does make me sad. I agree that it's kind of insulting, both to my generation and the younger generation these changes are aimed at, the idea that the '80s era references are so far beyond today's young readers that they won't be able to relate unless they see their own world, their own hobbies and pastimes and slang, because, ew, who wants to read something set in their parents' era? All I can say is that I'm glad they didn't pull this crap with Judy Blume--or, even worse, Anne of Green Gables--when I was a kid, and that I actually got to learn a thing or two about the people who existed before me and that the universe existed before I came to be in it.

As for the downsizing, whatever. I'm more inclined to think it's keeping up with size-inflation than making the twins' so-called perfection even skinnier. If anything, comparing today's size 4 to 1983's size six, that would mean the girls actually put on a few pounds. Which would not be a bad thing. Teen and pre-teen girls today need to have this pointed out to them, I believe, because the LAST thing that they need is more encouragement to starve themselves. Dear young girls of today: it's OK to eat a sandwich. The Wakefield twins eat, too. Or at least they would if they were, y'know, real.