*Born Naughty: My Childhood in China by Jin Wang, Tony Johnston, and Anisi Baigude
Young Adult
*Break to You by Neal Shusterman, Debra Young, and Michelle Knowlden Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin
Grownup Fiction
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin The Measure by Nikki Erlick But How Are You, Really by Ella Dawson Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson The Final Revival of Opal & Nev by Dawnie Walton Honey by Isabel Banta A Winter in New York by Josie Silver Need Blind Ambition by Kevin T. Myers The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray Mercury Pictures Presents by Anthony Marra
Mrs. Everything by Jennifer Weiner
With a decades-spanning plot and two instances where I gasped “No!” this was pretty much my perfect read.
The Women by Kristin Hannah
Sometimes the dial on historical fiction is turned too much to the side where we establish scene by naming songs and describing clothes and hairstyles. That was the case here. While Frankie’s story resonated with me, I kept getting pulled out of it by too many historical details that didn’t add anything to the plot.
Young Nonfiction
*Rising from the Ashes: Los Angeles, 1992. Edward Jae Song Lee, Latasha Harlins, Rodney King, and a City on Fire by Paula Yoo
Grownup Nonfiction
The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl by Issa Rae
Letterboxd hooked me up with a free ticket to see Didi, a film I was planning on prioritizing. I got to the theater early as directed in the email. It was a little chaotic because the people with the list were nowhere to be found. It turns out they were at the Lloyd Center theater and had to make their way from Northeast Portland to Northwest Portland and then find parking in Northwest Portland.*
*There is off-street parking for Cinema 21 after hours, but people have to know to look it up on the website. Most don’t, and they circle endlessly looking for a spot.
But they got to the right place and we got to see a fine film about the summer before high school. The woman playing the grandmother looked familiar to me, and it turns out the director of Didi, Sean Wang, was also the director of the short film Nai Nai & Wài Pó, which was nominated for an Academy Award for best documentary short for the 2024 awards. The grandmother was Wang’s own grandmother (Nai Nai, in the short film).
Thanks, Letterboxd and Cinema 21 for this good movie outing.
The trunk originally had a bunch of clothing in it—mostly favorite dresses—but in the mid-aughts, I took them to the high school youth group at First Unitarian and let them take home anything they wanted. The t-shirt from my first concert, however, remained tucked away.
Here, from Bon Jovi’s New Jersey Tour, is the concert t-shirt that I complained cost more than the tickets (about $30 when the tickets were about $18-19). T-shirts are probably cheaper than tickets currently, but that’s because tickets have increased in value, not that the shirts have gotten cheaper. (I just checked and Olivia Rodrigo tour shirts are $45.00; tickets are something like $99 to $450 at their original price.)
Anyway, from my perspective today, the skull iconography is odd. It seems more in keeping with Guns and Roses etc. than Bon Jovi. But this might have been before they got full into western iconography.
This shirt was worn twice. I knew when I bought it, I wasn’t going to make it out of the house with the back visible. The word “ass” was a no-go for public display. The same went for the school dress code.
I bought it anyway. I wore it to school the day after the concert with a jean jacket I never took off even though it was early may and past jean jacket weather. There was one other time I wore it, but I do not remember what it was.
18-year-old me felt it was important to keep all my check stubs from Pizza Hut. I’d like to say I find that kind of dumb, but I enjoyed looking at them. I find it interesting that the stubs don’t list my rate of pay.
My very first pay stub, ever! (My previous job paid me under the counter, which I didn’t love. I wanted to pay taxes and get things like check stubs!) Rate of pay here: $4.25, which was minimum wage at the time. For most of the time I worked at Pizza Hut I worked 10-ish hours a week, maybe a little more in the summer.
My last pay stub from Pizza Hut before I headed off to college. My rate of pay had increased to $4.70, though only because I found out that I was training people who were hired at $4.50 while still making $4.25 myself. Important lesson learned about advocating for a raise on a regular basis. The summer before I left for college, I worked as many hours as I could. They always kept me below 40 hours, though.
These notecards were a fun find because I have wished, now and again, that I had saved them. Turns out I had.
When I started to receive regular paychecks, I dutifully deposited the money and assigned it to categories. It turns out I wrote about this in an essay about money. The percentages are still hazy. But here are the records.
Savings DNETS meant “do not ever touch savings.” This was my pile of money to be saved for, something I wasn’t entirely clear about. I knew I just needed to save money.
Savings SUFSG meant “saving up for something good.” I also kept some of my paycheck for spending money, so SUFSG would be for things that cost more than my spending money.
It looks like I took out the following amounts from SUFSG: $70, $30, $40, $63.62 (a very exact amount), $20, $50, $45.76, $100, $20.
I think there is another 3×5 card that would reflect the money I earned the summer after high school. As I recall, I took about $2000—the DNETS amount—with me to college. I offered it up to defray tuition, but my mom said I should use it for spending money as I wasn’t going to have a job straight off. I blew through $1000 in the first semester—those catalogs had a lot of cool stuff in them—and then reformed my spendthrift ways.
So that was my early earnings history. Thanks, growing-up trunk, for holding that information for all of those years.
Being the reader I was and am, I made sure to stock my growing-up trunk with important books from my childhood and adolescence. In no particular order:
I was given this Little House set when I was still a baby, so I got the yellow box edition. My friends who had their own set usually had the blue box edition. I liked the yellow one better. But then the next iteration was a nice gingham theme. I would have gone for that one too.
You can see that these books were read many times. First they were read to me, then I read them on my own, then I read them every summer. Sometimes I started at the end and ended at Little House in the Big Woods. When that happened, Mary regained her sight, rather than lost it.
My friend Cindy had a tiny book called the Paper Bag Princess, and I loved it so much (despite being in high school and thus “too old” for it) that she made me my own copy one Christmas.
She had fun adding the commentary on the back, which she adapted from actual blurbs on books in her possession. “Now a spectacular film from Orion!!” cracks me up.
My favorite Little Golden Book to read at my Grandparents’ house. It was originally my Aunt Carol’s book, and the paper dolls aspects had been lost years before I found it. I looked for my own copy for years before finding one in the toy store in Seaside during this trip. I did not include the book in my chronicle of the trip, and I have no idea why as it had been a decades-long quest. Anyhow, this was the original one.
Oh, Alice. This book, so many feelings. It was fun to listen to the series of episodes the podcast “You’re Wrong About” did, starting with Go Ask Alice Part 1. I also read Rick Emerson’s Unmask Alice: LSD, Satanic Panic, and the Imposter Behind the World’s Most Notorious Diaries, so it’s been a big year for Go Ask Alice.
This might have been my entry into Chris Crutcher. I loved how the descriptions of cross country running made me want to be a runner.
I read a lot of Cynthia Voigt, but these two made the cut. This is a loose sequel to Jackaroo, and I didn’t know how to pronounce the main character’s name Birle, so I stopped in a jewelry store in the mall and asked. Because we didn’t have the internet to pronounce things for us back then.
And here’s Jackaroo. My historical fiction preferences are quite clear.
When I watched the film The Princess Bride I had no idea there was a book! When I found this, I loved it so much I read it aloud to my family.
Fannie Flagg was a favorite author once the movie version Fried Green Tomatoes was released, and I read the book. But the description of the Miss America pageant in this book was hilarious, so I went with Daisy Fay over Fried Green Tomatoes.
Who the heck wouldn’t count the Outsiders as an important book from their youth? Probably kids now, as I’ve recently reread it and found it a bit stiff. But I sure loved it then. I also like this cover. It’s very of its time.
This is the book in my collection I find most cringeworthy. I really, really, really liked it though when it was released. At least my bodice ripper entry has a classy cover on it.
Here’s the book that probably no one has heard of. I loved the New York City immigrant 1940s experience. And it was also really sad. This one, I’m holding onto. Will I read it again? Maaaaaayyybeeee? What if it’s not that good?
A book I always thought of as a good companion to this one, though contemporary, was Walk Through Cold Fire by Cin Forshay-Lunsford. It’s too bad I didn’t track down a copy for the trunk as they seem to be scarce. There are currently three copies available on Thriftbooks and the prices range from $112 to $129. I’ll keep my eye peeled for it to turn up somewhere for a normal price.
I was a huge fan of The Secret Garden, but A Little Princess has always been my favorite Frances Hodgson Burnett book. And one MUST read the version with Tasha Tudor illustrations.
More historical fiction. This one took place in Hungary, pre-WWI.
And this sequel took place during the war. I’m pretty sure my mother read these as a child, and thus they came into my life. Good choices.
And another classic. I read this book several times, both as assignment and on my own.
And that’s the tour of my books. I hadn’t realized how few would be contemporary. Really just Running Loose. I’m a diehard historical fiction fan and have been since I was a child.
Back when I was still an only child on the precipice of becoming a big sister, my Aunt Fran sent me a doll to distract from the fact that there would be a new baby in the house.
She came in this trunk, and her name was Katy, though I quite liked the K-k-k-katy song, so sometimes she got a few extra Ks added to her name.
Here she is with her eyes closed and her original outfit.
And here she is sitting up with her eyes open. Her shoes had ribbons, but I cut them off at some point.
And here are the handmade clothing items I dressed her in.
I love both of these prints.
Here’s a fancy dress and a robe (I think?)
Cute top and pants ensemble with polyester coat. (Matching lace collar!)
Knit poncho with hat and another cute dress.
Some flowery choices.
More tops. I especially like the one with cherries.
Here’s the front of the blue shirt. All sorts of fun patches.
I had a great time with growing up with Katy and these clothes. I’m not sure how successful she was in distracting me from a new baby in the house. But points for trying.
Matt, Greg, Renee, and I attended the 10-Year Anniversary Movie Quiz. We were excited to go because to celebrate the quiz’s long run, every team was guaranteed a prize.
As we are middling movie quizzees, this was our chance to win a prize.
I was hoping to score a Hallmark Keepsake Beatrice “Tris” Pior Divergent ornament. Mark the Quizmaster gives at least one of them away during every quiz. He jokes that they will probably be used as currency when the world ends.
We also had to identify Divergent from a film clip. I overthought it and guessed it was one of the later movies, so we even missed the Divergent question. (!)
We had a slow first round, and rallied a bit in the second round, but we were nowhere near the top three. Those winners got movie passes to the Hollywood Theatre and free movie rentals at Movie Madness. They also got first pick of the winning prizes. The prizes were stacked in the front of the theater, of various sizes, and all wrapped.
Mark told us that the theater asked us to open our prizes outside, so that we wouldn’t overburden the theater staff with extra cleaning duties.
Matt picked our prize, and it was book sized and squishy. It clearly wasn’t a Hallmark Keepsake Beatrice “Tris” Pior Divergent ornament. We guessed it might be a t-shirt as we exited the theater.
There, under the marquee lights, we unwrapped our prize in the company of other Movie Quiz prizewinners.
And we won a copy of Divergent!
Looking around at the other teams, we found that everyone, no matter the size of their prize, had also won a copy of the movie Divergent. “But some people got a Blu-ray,” a woman helpfully observed.
We all laughed, and I laughed more at the thought of Mark setting up this elaborate joke and also not being able to witness the payoff because he was still upstairs in the theater distributing prizes.
In the growing-up trunk were three scrapbooks, compiled at different times. I’ve grabbed some fun things from them.
This scrapbook was quite a good quality, I’m guessing from the 70s. At some point, I taped all my postcards in it. In removing them, the pages were heavy enough that they could still be used. So now this now-empty scrapbook goes back to the estate sale.
I always loved the cover of this scrapbook. Doesn’t everyone wish that they created such memory-filled scrapbooks? This one starts with stuff I cut out when I was five or so, lots of Ranger Rick-type illustrations, but then transitions into teenager-me stuff. While it has a pretty cover, the pages weren’t giving up their objects, so this one ended up in recycling.
And here is a late 80s, early 90s version. (we like to think we weren’t wearing neon in the 90s, but we still were.) It was full of late junior high and high school stuff. I closely tracked music labeling efforts by the PMRC, and the Deep Purple trial, where parents of a son who committed suicide sued the band for their satanic lyrics.
Here’s a clipping from the paper that hung on the wall in Cindy’s kitchen for years. Friends Cindy and April made the paper as sophomores. JP, the band director, was pleased.
Also note the Converse logo circa early 90s.
Ah Weight Watchers. My first bout of translating food into squares to be checked off.
Like most women who have attempted to lose weight, I would be quite happy to be at the weight I was when I first started dieting.
As with most diets, I started strong and bounced around. I was surprised to see I got down to 127 (and a half).
Oh, Tannar Brewer. All my friends were in love with him at different times. Myself included. Our friendship peaked in junior high. We drifted apart in high school.
Here is a fun West Junior High emblem. (I’m not sure what they are called.) Also my Borah letter. I lettered in band all three years. I don’t recall what I had to do to letter. Probably show up to play for sporting events.
One thing I hated about my high school was that the people who lettered in sports received a full sized letter, while the arty people who lettered got this half-sized number. I was not a fan of my school’s intense focus on athletics and adulation of athletes.
I was among the camp who didn’t. It was an annoyingly big deal.
Hey look, that guy is still on the court and still issuing a lot of rulings that affect women in terrible ways.
I’d forgotten about this stamp system. It used to be you could subscribe to multiple magazines at a discount, and you would indicate which magazines by sticking the stamps to the order form. Some of these publications are still around.
Even when my age was in the single digits, I always loved marching band. I just checked and Capital High School’s dance team is still called the Golden Girls.
However, Boise High School changed their mascot from “the Braves” to “Brave” and stopped using the Native American imagery in 2015. Apparently “Brave” stands for Balance, Resilience, Acceptance, Valor, and Engagement, an acronym for the values of their student body.
See this early 80s Borah band uniform? I got to wear it from 1990 to 1993. They were quite old uniforms when we stepped into them. New ones came after I graduated. (Grumble grumble)
This was a very fun day. Also, I forgot about Guy Klinger. He was a fun guy.
Oh my teenaged self and sarcasm. This was a great place to buy stickers. This was in the mall. (a.k.a. Boise Towne Square, but when you just have one mall you call it “the mall.”) Also, weird styling of the address. Why is “north” before the street address.
Friend Cate Olson’s older sister Jenny made the paper. I really liked her a lot. She was the kind of awesome teenager I wanted to be. Both Cate and Jenny were good musicians. Cate played violin (or possibly viola?).
Oh my goodness, the band Cinderella used the Boise Pavilion for their week of practice before starting their tour. So very cool. Also I didn’t know they were here until it was over the week had elapsed.
I did, however, go with my friends to the autograph session. We weren’t a big enough town to have autograph sessions in record stores and the like. This was the only one I experienced as a teenager. I still have the autographed 45.
I saw the Boise leg of this concert, too. One of the lifts that got the musicians on stage was still slow when we saw it real life, just as it was slow in the article. Hopefully they eventually figured that out.
I was perplexed by this one. Why such a big picture of Motley Crue? (It’s actually styled Mötley Crüe, Idaho Stateman). Why such a long article? Did they really have that much space to cover a band visiting for one night while on tour?
The next page of the scrapbook provided some insight.
Apparently, I was not the only person to have these questions. It wasn’t just a front page of the entertainment section. It was the front page of the entire paper!
Oh look, it’s a nun-yuh question about Tom Cruise and Mimi Rodgers, with fun ageism.
And here’s another nun-yuh question about Springsteen. That question is clearly a composite to make sure the reader knows what’s up with that celebrity divorce.
Nun-yuh = non of your business.
Why in the world did I save this edition of Personality Parade?
My dad has always been a fan of newspapers, so we got the Oregonian on the reg. It was available for purchase in Boise, and Dad used to go and buy it at Albertsons on Sunday morning. So this was a fun find. Z100 is still around.
Just reading the list of song names, I recognize only 14 of the 30. I bet I would remember more of them if I heard them. Of the list, Michael Penn’s “No Myth” is still a song I’m happy to hear.
And since we have so many pictures anyway, why not show the back of the scrapbook? “Can be used for all subjects.” Thanks for the permission, Plymouth.
Also present? My band folder. Here is a practice sheet. I’m enjoying the retro computer generated page. This is from ninth grade. I’m guessing that some of those times were rounded up rather generously.
My first band trip! The West Junior High School Jazz Band went to the Lionel Hampton Chevron Jazz Festival in Moscow. We got last place, but I enjoyed hearing the winning bands and flirting with guys from Canada.
Why do I have a California license plate? I do not know.
I suspect this one came from the family car.
Here’s an interactive postcard…
…that is super creepy. It’s not from anyone. I liked it, so I bought it.
When I graduated from high school, I used part of my graduation money to buy a trunk, which I then refinished. I then put many growing-up things in it.
Then I went off to college and it stayed in my parents’ garage. When I moved to Portland, I brought it over, and it’s been hanging out in my aunt’s basement ever since. It’s a big trunk, and I don’t have room for it at my house.
Because of circumstances, it is time to empty the trunk so it can be sold.
Inside were two jewelry boxes which were full of this and that. Some of it I remembered, some, like this piece of paper, I didn’t.
I think this was a cover on my 6th grade desk that I decided to save for nostalgia reasons (I guess?) Let’s zoom in on some of the sections.
Despite the lower right corner being explicit about not drawing on the paper, it’s full of drawings. Perhaps I meant that I was only one who could draw on it? I liked my wish to not have spelling. I know spelling tests went away sometime in junior high or high school. The returned for my senior year of high school, though, much to my annoyance. I still wasn’t great at them.
You can see another spelling related wish, to get 100 on my spelling test. Also a wish to make it to seventh grade (there was no doubt), an example of printing and cursive, and my friend Natalie’s new address in Fruitland. She was moving over the summer.
I like my illustration of Mount Saint Helens before and after, as well as Jaws and my celebration of 100 squares. I’m not sure what the 100 squares thing was about, but good job past me, for achieving that.
Also in one of the jewelry boxes? My Pizza Hut nametag. You can see that I was a service professional.
My frugal self loves the JAW festival because the readings are free. But I also love plays and have enjoyed our previous outing.
Fires, Ohio was another good night at the theater. Trapped by poor air quality from a nearby fire, a family has a dinner together to celebrate an old friend’s visit. And then so many other things happen.
As the play progressed, each character searched the internet for information. I thought this was a particularly brilliant way to get insight about the characters.
