Return of the Sweet Valley Twins

[MacMadame]

I loved the sagas, too. Even though I was always that a lot of the female ancestors were twins who looked exactly like Elizabeth & Jessica. Those are some strong genes if all the girls in the family have blond hair, aqua eyes & were perfect size 6's.

What, there was no vanity sizing in Sweet Valley?!

I was too old for them, but I did read the Sweet Valley University series, as it was very popular at my library. All I remember is that Elizabeth gained the Freshman 15 in one of them.

I was in my 20s when I read them. The BSC too. I liked those better.

But I didn't last very long with either series, probably read about 20 of each. When I realized they would keep publishing them forever so I'd never read them all, I gave up.

[myhoneyhoney]

SVH, SVT, BabySitter Club... ahhhh, back to my childhood! I have some BSC vhs tapes too, lol I never really saw the SVH series. I wonder if I can Netflix it or maybe youtube

[SmallFairy]

the book I remember best from SVH was the one where one girl was really fat and unattractiv, and made friends with Elisabeth.... the fat girl was in love with the cool, handsome guy at school.... Then, the fat girl started to excercise, running around and around the track and field lanes at school, and she shrunk and was totally slim and it turned out her face was suddenly really pretty and gorgeous, and she won some homecoming queen or whatever competition, and the handsome boy wanted to date her, but she turned him down and chose the geek instead, that she had liked all along

talk about politically correct and incorrect litterature lol

[Stefanie]

With BSC, can you believe that Mallory and Jessi were only 11 years old?! I know they were considered "junior babysitters," but now that I'm a lot older than that I can't imagine a little 11 year old girl babysitting. (But I think part of the rule was that they could only babysit after school for a few hours and/or they had to babysit together. Someone correct me here.)

Oh, and I remember when I got tired of how the girls never aged and they were always in 8th and 6th grades, respectively. I wrote all about this to Ann M. Martin, and in her response letter she explained how if she allowed them to age then she couldn't keep up with them and they'd be 30 before we know it, etc. I understand this, but she could have at least made them freshmen in highschool at some point and then continued from there. I am surprised she herself never got tired of writing about them being in middle school.

[KikiSashaFan]

They did graduate from middle school in the very last book of the Friends Forever spin off. I may or may not own all of those too

[Stefanie]

I love this blog that recaps all the books:
http://claudiasroom.blogspot.com/

This blog is hilarious!!!

And there's a picture of a page in the back of one the books that's an advertisement for the BSC club on Prodigy. I was a member of that, too.

[danceronice]

I actually watched that show, back when the channel that carried it was called Discovery Kids (I think it's been renamed). Hated when they changed all the actors in the 3rd (?) season - the replacement for Veronica DeAngelo was no match for the original actress who played her.

IIRC, there was some gap between seasons 2-3 and they ran into the common problem of actors aging out of their roles and others becoming unavailable. Of course they also basically dumped 99% of the realism, such as their was, at that point. (With the freakin' mini donk.)

Of course even reading them as a kid I knew there were issues (as one might expect from books written by someone whose only riding experience was tooling around Central Park on the rental horses!) My barn friends and I used to make fun of some of the things that just Did Not Work if you knew the first thing about horses.

I can't remember the name of the other book (I think it was SVT #24 or so - I have the first 33 SVT books, and then I outgrew the series), but I remember the girl's name was Ginny Lu Culpepper. IIRC the horse's name in the story was Snow White.

That's it! Ginny Lu Culpepper, who carved whimmydiddles out of wood. (The things I am wasting neurons remembering...)

[ArtisticFan]

This Sweet Valley blog is hilarious. She recaps some other books too.
http://thedairiburger.com/

OMG...She also covered Taffy Sinclair. I remember receiving a handful of those books in a birthday package once. There was one where they had some sort of parenting class in middle school where they had to carry around a stuffed animal like a baby for two weeks or something. The poor nice girl thought that Taffy liked her, but actually Taffy was making her be the babysitter.

[Wyliefan]

With BSC, can you believe that Mallory and Jessi were only 11 years old?! I know they were considered "junior babysitters," but now that I'm a lot older than that I can't imagine a little 11 year old girl babysitting. (But I think part of the rule was that they could only babysit after school for a few hours and/or they had to babysit together. Someone correct me here.)

I started babysitting when I was 11, but it was usually only kids who lived on our street, and my mom was generally on call in case of emergency. And my sister and I often went together, at least for a while.

[Karina1974]

OMG...She also covered Taffy Sinclair. I remember receiving a handful of those books in a birthday package once. There was one where they had some sort of parenting class in middle school where they had to carry around a stuffed animal like a baby for two weeks or something. The poor nice girl thought that Taffy liked her, but actually Taffy was making her be the babysitter.

Oh, no!!! Anyone remember the book The Against Taffy Sinclair Club? Where the girls send away for the Milo Venus Bust Developer?!

[SmallFairy]

Oh, no!!! Anyone remember the book The Against Taffy Sinclair Club? Where the girls send away for the Milo Venus Bust Developer?!

OMG that was hilarious, I remember I laughed so hard in Norwegian it was called Venus fra Milo brystuvikler!

I remember the pink pencils that the girls in some club got...that was laying in a see-through plastic bag, awaiting it's new members...

all those books came from the same book club here in Norway....guess they just translated a bunch in a hurry and send them out

[aka_gerbil]

With BSC, can you believe that Mallory and Jessi were only 11 years old?! I know they were considered "junior babysitters," but now that I'm a lot older than that I can't imagine a little 11 year old girl babysitting. (But I think part of the rule was that they could only babysit after school for a few hours and/or they had to babysit together. Someone correct me here.)

Oh, and I remember when I got tired of how the girls never aged and they were always in 8th and 6th grades, respectively. I wrote all about this to Ann M. Martin, and in her response letter she explained how if she allowed them to age then she couldn't keep up with them and they'd be 30 before we know it, etc. I understand this, but she could have at least made them freshmen in highschool at some point and then continued from there. I am surprised she herself never got tired of writing about them being in middle school.

OMG! How many years did they spend in the 8th grade?

When I first started reading the BSC books, I was 9-years-old and in the third grade. At that age, the lives these girls led seemed so very cool and grown-up to me. It was when I was 13 and entered the 8th grade that I pretty much lost interest in the books. My life was nothing like theirs and the never leaving the 8th grade was really starting to bug me. I am glad to here that they eventually graduated!

I'm surprised, too, that she (and the ghostwriters) never tired of middle school. I can understand not wanting to age them too fast, but there could have been some progression going on there--like through 4 years of high school.

If I'm remembering this correctly, Jessi and Mallory could only babysit during certain hours and never more than a few kids over a certain age.

I never read The Saddle Club books (although I may have watched the show on Discovery Kids). I do remember reading a few books from another series about girls and horses. I cannot remember the name to save my life though. For some reason, one girl came to stay with another girl, who wasn't able to walk after surviving a car wreck that her dad was killed in, and her mom at a stable somewhere. The girl who had been in the wreck miraculously regained her ability to walk and ride, and the two girls ended up BFF's.

I also liked the "Palm Beach Prep" series, but it was short-lived. I think there were only 4 or 5 books published.

[Stefanie]

When I first started reading the BSC books, I was 9-years-old and in the third grade. At that age, the lives these girls led seemed so very cool and grown-up to me. It was when I was 13 and entered the 8th grade that I pretty much lost interest in the books. My life was nothing like theirs and the never leaving the 8th grade was really starting to bug me.

I felt the same way about how cool their lives were and all of the cool things they experienced, hoping that when I reached 8th grade it would be like it. It wasn't. I didn't have a Logan Bruno.

[nerdycool]

My friends and I may or may not have tried to start our own babysitters club

Tried being the operative word.

Onward, I talked to my mom last night, and she still has all my books (even though I told her she could get rid of them). When my parents come to visit me, they're going to bring them... all gazillion of them. Mr. nerdycool is going to be all, "what the hell woman?!?" Then I'll only have to figure out whether to keep them for my children, or to sell them on eBay and make some $$$ when they start re-releasing the series, which I heard they're going to do for both SVH & BSC.

[aka_gerbil]

My friends and I may or may not have tried to start our own babysitters club

Tried being the operative word.

Onward, I talked to my mom last night, and she still has all my books (even though I told her she could get rid of them). When my parents come to visit me, they're going to bring them... all gazillion of them. Mr. nerdycool is going to be all, "what the hell woman?!?" Then I'll only have to figure out whether to keep them for my children, or to sell them on eBay and make some $$$ when they start re-releasing the series, which I heard they're going to do for both SVH & BSC.

If you decide to part with them, there's a chance I might be interested in some of the BSC books. (Watch me amass the entire collection for a hypothetical future daughter and then end up having sons.)

[Cheylana]

I wasn't allowed to babysit until I was 13. I made up for lost time though, and spent an inordinate number of hours watching rugrats and making hand over fist. (Or at least I thought it was big money back then, lol.)

Yeah, the whole "never aging" thing in the various series bugged....

Oh, I just remembered another series: Anyone read The Girls of Canby Hall books? It followed three roommates at an all-girls boarding school in...New England maybe? Dana, Shelley and Faith, I think those were the names.

Those girls were allowed to age, and they eventually were replaced by three new roommates.

[nerdycool]

If you decide to part with them, there's a chance I might be interested in some of the BSC books. (Watch me amass the entire collection for a hypothetical future daughter and then end up having sons.)

I'll keep that in mind!

But please note, my parents live in another state and the soonest they may visit is this summer. If they don't come, I'll get them at Christmas. And then I have to re-read everything So it'll be a while!

[aka_gerbil]

I'll keep that in mind!

But please note, my parents live in another state and the soonest they may visit is this summer. If they don't come, I'll get them at Christmas. And then I have to re-read everything So it'll be a while!

We've got some time. I still need to meet a nice guy, get married, have a daughter, and wait for her to be old enough to read the BSC books.

[nerdycool]

I suppose we do have some time then!

[meggonzo]

was anyone else into Christopher Pike's books? Remember Me, Whisper of Death, Road to Nowhere, Fall into Darkness... love them!!