When I was in high school, I went through a movie novelization phase because our library was well-stocked with movies turned into books. I remember reading Mrs. Doubtfire, Honey I Blew up the Kid, Soul Food, Waiting to Exhale, A Walk in the Clouds, Jumanji, Danielle Steel’s The Promise, and perhaps a dozen more books I can’t remember off the bat.
While I’ve long outgrown this phase — I now steer clear of movie covers for my book collection — there is one movie novelization left on my shelf: My Girl, adapted by Patricia Hermes (written by Laurice Elehwany).
I was a big fan of the movie, and I think I must’ve checked the book out of the library five times until I got my own copy from a bargain book store in college, and I’ve read it countless of times since.
Having lost my dad right before I turned 11, there was a time I was really engrossed in young adult novels that dealt with grief and loss, and My Girl was 1/3 of my figurative shrink’s couch, along with Sharon Creech’s Walk Two Moons and Judy Blume’s Tiger Eyes.
Vada Sultenfuss is a weird but lovable protagonist – a sad 11-year old girl in need of attention from her dad and senile grandmother; a hypochondriac obsessed with death, convinced she killed her own mother by being born; a tomboy constantly bullying her geeky best friend Thomas J; and a teenybopper head over heels in love with her English teacher Mr. Bixler.
It’s a summer that changes Vada’s life forever, as she befriends an offbeat makeup artist, Shelley, who eventually becomes her dad’s girlfriend (and wife). She steals money from Shelley’s cookie jar to attend Mr. Bixler’s adult writing classes at the community college, becomes blood brothers with Thomas J (hahaha I used to find it fascinating — one of them snags a finger on a fish hook and the other picks a scab!); and gets her first kiss, also from Thomas J.
Of course we all know what happens next (don’t read if you haven’t seen the movie) — Shelly and her dad start dating, she finds out Mr. Bixler is engaged to be married, and Thomas J gets stung by bees to retrieve Vada’s mood ring, and he dies from an allergy to bee stings.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JP007VCD67A]
Weeping willow with your tears running down,
why do you always weep and frown?
Is it because he left you one day?
Is it because he could not stay?
On your branches he would swing,
Do you long for the happiness
that day would bring?
He found shelter in your shade,
he thought his laughter would never fade.
Weeping willow stop your tears,
for there is something to calm your fears.
You think death has ripped you forever apart,
but I know he’ll always be in your heart.
How I wish this book had a hardcover edition…
***
My copy: mass market paperback, creased after so many readings
My rating: 5/5 stars
