Deenie

Originally published by Bradbury Press in 1973.

When Deenie finds out that she has scoliosis, she’s scared. When she sees the brace for the first time, she wants to scream. But the words won’t come out. And Deenie, beautiful Deenie, who everyone says should be a model, is stuck wearing a brace from her neck to her hips. For four years—or longer. She never worried about how she looked before—how will she ever face the hard times ahead?

I hate it when my mother brags about me and my sister. "Deenie's the beauty and Helen's the brain."' Mrs Fenner has very fixed ambitions for her daughters. Deenie is thirteen years old and gorgeous. Her mother wants her to be a model – but Deenie's not so sure. So when she's diagnosed with scoliosis – curvature of the spine – Deenie's almost relieved. No more traipsing round modelling agencies, no more living up to her mother's expectations. But she has to wear an ugly, uncomfortable back brace for the next four years. And she's convinced that it will put an end to normal teenage life – including her blossoming relationship with Buddy Brader . . .

Sally J. Freedman was ten when she made herself a movie star. She would have been happy to reach stardom in New Jersey, but in 1947 her older brother Douglas became ill, so the Freedman family traveled south to spend eight months in the sunshine of Florida. That’s where Sally met her friends Andrea, Barbara, Shelby, Peter, and Georgia Blue Eyes—and her unsuspecting enemy, Adolf Hitler. Dear Chief of Police: You don’t know me but I am a detective from New Jersey. I have uncovered a very interesting case down here. I have discovered that Adolf Hitler is alive and has come to Miami Beach to retire. He is pretending to be an old Jewish man... While she watches and waits, and keeps a growing file of letters under her bed, Sally’s Hitler will play an important—though not quite starring—role in one of her grandest movie spectaculars.

Ever since his dad got rich from an invention and his family moved to a wealthy neighborhood on Long Island, Tony Miglione’s life has been turned upside down. For starters, there’s his new friend, Joel, who shoplifts. Then there’s Joel’s sixteen-year-old sister, Lisa, who gets undressed every night without pulling down her shades. And there’s Grandma, who won’t come down from her bedroom. On top of all that, Tony has a whole bunch of new questions about growing up. . . . Why couldn’t things have stayed the same?

The first contemporary novel about a disease that bends the lives of ten percent of all teenagers: scoliosis. Rachel Brooks is excited for the new school year. She's finally earned a place as a forward on her soccer team. Her best friends make everything fun. And she really likes Tate, and she's pretty sure he likes her back. After one last appointment with her scoliosis doctor, this will be her best year yet.Then the doctor delivers some terrible news: The sideways curve in Rachel's spine has gotten worse, and she needs to wear a back brace twenty-three hours a day. The brace wraps her in hard plastic from shoulder blades to hips. It changes how her clothes fit, how she kicks a ball, and how everyone sees her -- even her friends and Tate. But as Rachel confronts all the challenges the brace presents, the biggest change of all may lie in how she sees herself.Written by a debut author who wore a brace of her own, Braced is the inspiring, heartfelt story of a girl learning to manage the many curves life throws her way.

“Blubber is a good name for her,” the note from Caroline said about Linda. Jill crumpled it up and left it on the corner of her school desk. She didn’t want to think about Linda or her dumb report on whales just then. Jill wanted to think about Halloween. But Robby grabbed the note and before Linda stopped talking it had gone halfway around the room. There was something about Linda that made a lot of kids in her fifth-grade class want to see how far they could go…but nobody, Jill least of all, expected the fun to end where it did.

Iggie’s House just wasn’t the same. Iggie was gone, moved to Tokyo. And there was Winnie, cracking her gum on Grove Street, where she’d always lived, with no more best friend and two weeks left of summer. Then the Garber family moved into Iggie’s house—two boys, Glenn and Herbie, and Tina, their little sister. The Garbers were black and Grove Street was white and always had been. Winnie, a welcoming committee of one, set out to make a good impression and be a good neighbor. That’s why the trouble started. Because Glenn and Herbie and Tina didn’t want a “good neighbor.” They wanted a friend.

With more than four million copies sold, Wifey is Judy Blume's hilarious, moving tale of a woman who trades in her conventional wifely duties for her wildest fantasies—and learns a lot about life along the way. Sandy Pressman is a nice suburban wife whose boredom is getting the best of her. She could be making friends at the club, like her husband keeps encouraging her to do. Or working on her golf game. Or getting her hair done. But for some reason, these things don't interest her as much as the naked man on the motorcycle...

Nine months after Danny disappeared, his closest friends, Ellie, Rae, and Deenie, deal with their loss very differently but will have to share secrets about the night he disappeared to uncover the truth. Chapters alternate between past and present.