Sweet Mother of Anorexia
What was Random House thinking when they changed the size of the Sweet Valley High twins from a size six to a size four. And what on earth made them bother to highlight it in a letter to the press announcing the re-issue of Sweet Valley High?
Are there not enough images on television and in film of the ultra-thin? Now, books must also emphasize someone's size?
I was a first-generation Sweet Valley High reader. Loved those books to death. I never knew the size of the twins, much less would recognize a change in a re-issued version of the book. I'm completely clueless as to why it was an essential fact to "update." Or why it's worth noting in relation to what is otherwise a grand moment in the life of this series and teen literature.
Gossip Girl and my own Del Rio Bay series owes our debt to SVH - it's the mold from which all teen pop series were formed.
I met Francine Pascal at the SCBWI Mid-Winter conference in 2006 when I attended her workshop "Writing The Teen Series." I remember her saying she wrote SVH because she wanted to create a teen soap opera. And SVH was definitely that, right down to amnesiacs, evil twins and mysterious sometimes near-fatal diseases among key characters.
Pascal's plot lines were homages to the Guiding Light, Days of Lives and All My Children soap rage that personified much of the '80's. The SVH twins being "a perfect size six" wasn't a marketing angle. It merely mirrored the petite women of daytime soaps.
But what purpose does diminishing their size serve? And what the heck is wrong with being a size six?!
As the momma of an athletically-built, curvy teenager who hasn't been a size six since she was in the fifth grade, I'm disgusted that size matters. As a YA writer, I'm saddened that within all the words we writers put together to make a fun read, the one which bears the most significance, in this case, is a number.
See, this is why I'm not a numbers person!
Are there not enough images on television and in film of the ultra-thin? Now, books must also emphasize someone's size?
I was a first-generation Sweet Valley High reader. Loved those books to death. I never knew the size of the twins, much less would recognize a change in a re-issued version of the book. I'm completely clueless as to why it was an essential fact to "update." Or why it's worth noting in relation to what is otherwise a grand moment in the life of this series and teen literature.
Gossip Girl and my own Del Rio Bay series owes our debt to SVH - it's the mold from which all teen pop series were formed.
I met Francine Pascal at the SCBWI Mid-Winter conference in 2006 when I attended her workshop "Writing The Teen Series." I remember her saying she wrote SVH because she wanted to create a teen soap opera. And SVH was definitely that, right down to amnesiacs, evil twins and mysterious sometimes near-fatal diseases among key characters.
Pascal's plot lines were homages to the Guiding Light, Days of Lives and All My Children soap rage that personified much of the '80's. The SVH twins being "a perfect size six" wasn't a marketing angle. It merely mirrored the petite women of daytime soaps.
But what purpose does diminishing their size serve? And what the heck is wrong with being a size six?!
As the momma of an athletically-built, curvy teenager who hasn't been a size six since she was in the fifth grade, I'm disgusted that size matters. As a YA writer, I'm saddened that within all the words we writers put together to make a fun read, the one which bears the most significance, in this case, is a number.
See, this is why I'm not a numbers person!
posted by Paula at 12:59 PM
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