When I was a kid, I used to read The Baby-sitter's Club books. In 1992, my best friend had all of them: at that point, there were 50. I was nowhere near that involved, to this day I think I only ever read fifteen of them and only maybe owned eight or nine. I also had a box set of four or five of the Little Sister series.
I didn't like the "Little Sister" books because Karen always always said "cannot" instead of "can't". That was pretty much the sole reason. I figured anyone in this day and age who couldn't use a contraction in regular conversation was too stuck up for me to even read about. Besides this, Karen was something of a liar. (A trait that was acceptable in me, but in no one else.)
I was looking something up about the BSC the other day, and was shocked to discover that the kids were all middle schoolers. When I was reading the books, I was singularly ignorant of education after fifth grade. I was vaguely aware that you went to other schools, and you did go to high school and then you went to college. Somehow, I had always assumed that the BSC girls were in high school, age thirteen meant nothing to me.
To me, it was inconceivable that anyone not in high school would be allowed to have a telephone, buy their own clothes (especially outfits like those girls wore!), babysit, or ride their bike to places halfway across town. If you did those things, you must be a high schooler. I'm still amazed that the parents of that many thirteen year old girls would allow them to wear some of the outfits they wore, and do some of the things those girls did.
It's funny, because I wore pretty much whatever I wanted. Until the seventh grade my wardrobe circled around the t-shirt. In the summer, the t-shirt was coupled with shorts. In the winter, jeans and a sweatshirt over the t-shirt. I had some summer clothes that consisted of sleeveless shirts, but they also had button t-shirts to wear over them. The idea was that if it got too warm, the over-shirt could be taken off. No matter the temperature, I always refused to take the outer layer off. I disliked going barefoot, and nothing in the world could compel me to wear sandals. (Not that my parents tried, my father didn't like them either.)
I prefered to wear boy's jeans, if given the option, and had some boy's dress shirts as well. My mother despaired and I can recall heated conversations because my father had picked out more "boy's clothes" for me. This made dress clothes all the more difficult. It wasn't bad in elementary school, I liked girl's dresses with the knee length skirts and collars and puffed sleeves, I wouldn't wear 'em voluntarily, but if I had to, no big deal. Middle school, however, introduced me to a world of fashion unlike any I had ever imagined. Everything I saw I considered downright whorish. The alternative was to look like a 40 year old woman. I didn't like it, but it was better, in my opinion, than looking like a whore.
What were these whore clothes? Spaghetti straps. Skorts. Wrap-around skirts. Baby doll t-shirts. Short dresses with scoop necks. Nothing could've been more horrible to me, a twelve year old girl who had no desire to be anything but a twelve year old boy.
The dresses were the worst, because in addition to being totally exposing, they were hopelessly ugly, but my mother wouldn't let me wear pants for any dressed up occasion except for orchestra. So, I looked like my mother's generation. I looked like a goof, and felt like an idiot, but at least I didn't look like a slut like all my friends.
But, back to the BSC. To this day I'm not really sure why I read the books. While every girl in the school read them, it wasn't a big deal not to. I thought they were hopelessly formulaic (I took to skipping the second chapter because it was almost exactly the same in every single book), and the girls were awfully stereotypical in ways that I didn't recognise as having anything to do with reality. I didn't know anyone like these girls, who did the things they did. I dunno, maybe the alien quality of the books is what drew me.
Every time my father passed my room and saw me reading, he'd ask me what I was reading. It was years before I realised that if he approved, he never said anything, and if he didn't, he'd ask me whether I didn't have anything better to read. He never told me to stop reading the trash, he just asked whether I didn't have anything better around. I suppose if I hadn't been reading anything better, he might've said something, but as I was always reading decent stuff too, he never did. I could read it all.
I also had three or four of The Boxcar Children books. They were the enigma. With those books, my father always asked me what number it was. I later discovered that the original author only wrote the first 19 books, making any number under 19 OK, and the rest of them trash. I didn't really like The Boxcar Children as they were always cleaning up after themselves or making themselves hopelessly useful. I only recently discovered that the first book was published in the 40's. I had placed them in the 80's along with the BSC books.
It occurs to me now that most of the books in those series I read were mysteries. In fact, 90% of the books I got from school book fairs and book sales were either mysteries. The exceptions were Stormy: Misty's Foal, which I've never read to this day, and an English book called The Little Gymnast that I got the year I started gymnastics.
I suppose now that's why I'd read all the Sherlock Holmes Strand magazine stories by the time I was in sixth grade; my father realised I wanted to read mysteries and decided to give me good ones.
I did draw the line at never reading Goosebumps books. Those were too trashy even for me. My brother read one or two, but he never cared much for fiction. I also couldn't get interested in any Roald Dahl except for The BFG, I considered the rest of it to be way too gross and beneath my interest. I read Matilda, but hated it because she was hopelessly stupid for a genius. The James and Charlie books never had much impact on me at all, though I read them.
My mother's always said that I have a habit of deciding everything is awful whether it is or not. My father, in turn, says that I have no interest in having any fun. When I think about it, I suppose they're right.