So I've been wondering about the blatant Sweet Valley High erasure (so popular that I still occasionally get earwormed by the theme tune for the TV show. And the Babysitters Club erasure, so popular that there were approximately 11 million spin offs and ambitious crossover events. Maybe we discount these because they're American?
But then there were so many British books, too. I remember when the transphobic wizards series came out and I thought it was a shameless rip off of The Worst Witch, but less good because it didn't have a weird film adaptation with Tim Curry serving major cunt
And of course, there were series to suit all ages. Good old Tracey Beaker, beautifully illustrated and a working class hero. Teenage worrier Lettie Chubb, full-frontal snogger Georgia Nicholson, I remember you and your ubiquity around the millennium.
And then it hit me like a bus. There were tons of major serieses with all the merch and adaptations, etc but... most of the protagonists were *girls*. And we know, because of patriarchy, this is a turn off for boys because society tells them they don't wanna read that.
So when they say the transphobic wizards series got kids reading, what they really mean is that perhaps boys were reading now because a shameless Worst Witch rip off starring a boy appealed more to them. In other words, once again, it's prioritising boys rather than raising them better.
And so, there's another reason to fucking hate the transphobic wizards series and culture's reaction to it.
Anyway, I'll leave you with this: Tim Curry's number from The Worst Witch. If you haven't seen it before, you're welcome. If you have seen it before, you're welcome. https://youtu.be/SSZYVFc6BqI?si=UkIzJ46IJDav8RDO
I would like to apologise for the blatant erasure of Goosebumps/Point Horror/general Point franchise in this thread. I absolutely exhausted my library's supply of them.
See also: Round The Twist. The books were, quite possibly, even weirder than the TV show.
And a confession: I never read Animorphs, the cursed covers scared the shit out of me (and still do)
Also btw, the recent netflix adaptation of the Babysitters Club had no business being as good as it was and if you loved the books as a kid it is a heady nostalgia kick.
@stavvers
He was flirting waaay too much for a children's film 💕
@heathen_cat his delivery of "anything can happen on halloween" is impossible to read as anything but a proposition
@stavvers It was really good! My daughter and I loved it.
@RachelThornSub was gutted they cancelled (as netflix always do) because it was an absolute delight
@stavvers I had been trying to steer my daughter away from trashy teen dramas (She was ten, now eleven), and was so happy when I found that show.
@stavvers
I loved the Dark is Rising, but (as weird as this is to stay) I think it was genuinely too complicated to do as a story for movies (the film adaptation was -awful- but I don't know how you could do it justice?)
Like, a very important character in the books is literally a judas analogue, and he is the -only one in the story- who thinks his betrayal is unexpected is him- the others have future knowledge!
There's a layered morality angle that just doesn't scream 'for kids'
But it is.
Oct 18, 2026, 11:33 AM@stavvers point horror might have been full of wanky "american high school mythology" shit BUT
hell yeah death and murder and almost invariably girl protagonist and girl friend and "boyfriend is well meaning but a bit clueless". or "boyfriend is a fuckin waster and probably the killer"
some of the short stories were fuckin dark too
Oct 18, 2026, 11:34 AM@stavvers when I was in primary school there was this one battered old book that I think was like point thriller or point drama or something? literally about a plane crashing into some girl's neighbourhood. Our whole class fucking DEVOURED that book, it was all we talked about for weeks
@sinvega omfg that sounds absolutely fucking banging
Oct 18, 2026, 11:37 AM@stavvers it's where I learned the concept of the golden hour in medicine. Because there was a whole scene where she's looking around at the field hospital and realising, jesus, the golden hour was like 5 hours ago, and we're still trying to save people
... fuck I've gotta find a copy now
@sinvega this has just reminded me of a book series I *devoured* which was about a bunch of Troubled Young People doing internships in the ER, loads of horrible medical stuff and big accidents, I loved it
Oct 18, 2026, 11:44 AM@stavvers one of the horrible histories books memorably explained that adults think kids are delicate because adults are delicate, and we know that you, kids, fuckin love that shit
Oct 18, 2026, 11:44 AM@stavvers (I may be paraphrasing somewhat)
@sinvega a few years ago, I worked at a children's charity and once we saw the Horrible Histories stage show. Kids absolutely lost their fucking minds singing a disgusting song about plague symptoms
Oct 18, 2026, 11:50 AM@stavvers omg i found it aaaand:
opening paragraph is... well written! omg
@sinvega !!!! TELL THE CLASS WHAT IT'S CALLED
Oct 18, 2026, 11:54 AM@stavvers NEVER I MUST PROTECT MY oh alright
it's called Flight 116 Is Down, and apparently it both won an award and was reissued in 2013. With a crappy blurb but ih, publishers are fuckwits
I am mildly disappointed that the dude is introduced first, but I do remember there being two protagonists so we'll see whether she got equal billing or I just liked her more
Oct 18, 2026, 11:52 AM@stavvers "Patrick did not like coffee and wished he could order a Pepsi. But he was learning how to gag coffee down. His original plan was to drink it black because he liked guys who straddled the stools at the counter and said, “Black”—tough and hard, as if saying, “Assassinate Me.” But black coffee was disgusting; you might as well drink concentrated river pollution. Then he tried his father’s style, “Half a sugar, drop of milk,” but that just turned the pollution paler. He was up to “Two sugars, heavy on the milk” now, and he still couldn’t figure out why people wanted to pour this stuff into their systems.
But he loved the coffee shop."
I am IN this is good shit
@sinvega I have legitimately read "good" books with a less good opening than this
Oct 18, 2026, 11:55 AM@stavvers seriously
also it opens with "Saturday: 5:05pm", which according to the WTYP rule means you IMMEDIATELY know shit is about to get real
Oct 18, 2026, 12:02 PM@stavvers so page 3 and we're getting naturally worked in context about the town having no jobs, so there are no adults around to volunteer for shit, so most of the emergency first responders are teenagers, whcih puts our guy in the ridiculous position of being trusted to go to crash sites and deliver babies and shit, but still needing special written permission to leave a classroom (which lol @ USians btw)
"If it weren’t for Juniors, it would be very poor planning to have a car accident, a baby, a stabbing, a heart attack, or a drug overdose between eight in the morning and six at night."
this might be really fuckin good
Oct 18, 2026, 12:04 PM@stavvers "Eighty-four-year-olds in nursing homes were always having difficulty breathing. "
yesss get those dumb bitches
Oct 18, 2026, 12:06 PM@stavvers okay I will stop atting you but only after this last one, because our boy is ONE OF US and maybe the coming horrors will save him from some brutal relationship lessons
"Mr. Farquhar’s enthusiasm for rescue of any kind had hit an all-time low.
Patrick’s enthusiasm was at an all-time high. All he needed was somebody to rescue. "
@sinvega I hage just downloaded and I don't doubt I will end up @-ing you with favourite bits
Oct 18, 2026, 12:14 PM@stavvers yayyyy
@sinvega incidentally I just googled the author and it turns out she also wrote the thing about the volunteers in the ER that I loved.
Oct 18, 2026, 12:10 PM@stavvers "For my daughter, Louisa, who became an EMT at sixteen" so basically she just admired the fuck out of her kid it sounds like 😭
@stavvers I loved the Round The Twist books, I read as many as I could get my hands on. Also enjoyed the TV show but yeah, those books were super weird and fun.
@benofbrown I'm pretty sure those books are solely responsible for me having picked up a ton of Australian-isms in my vocabulary
@stavvers round the twist!! i agree with your other references too, i just haven't thought about paul jennings in years. i think i read those at exactly the right age.
Oct 18, 2026, 12:04 PM
💕💕💕💕
@stavvers
holy fuck
@stavvers cheesy and absolutely delightful - thank you!
And let us not forget, Darth Mouldermort chose the pseudonym "JK Rowling" because "only a man could be a successful fantasy author" 🤦🏼♀️
@alexadeswift @stavvers Her alter ego when writing detective stuff is Robert Galbraith - another hideous transphobic being in real life.
Ah yes, Robert Galbraith, the alter ego of Enoch Blyton aka Darth Mouldermort whose pseudonym is JK Rowling.
All of whom are vile bigoted pieces of shit.
Oct 18, 2026, 11:07 AM@stavvers I do remember finding that it was EVEN more of a clone of another series that predated WW, I just wish I could remember what it was called
Oct 18, 2026, 11:02 AM@stavvers totally agree! Even as an adult, my absolute favourite series of books were the Tiffany Aching books.
@stavvers "A Wrinkle In Time" fits this pattern. L'Engle is one of the great wordlbuilding fantasists. . . But her protagonist was a girl so. . .
@stavvers Exactly! That's exactly what I thought - The Worst Witch with a classic Roald Dahl hero origin story. I was 16 when the first HP came out and I am always shocked when people talk as if before HP, kids weren't avid readers. (Point Horror was the big series when we were 11/12ish.)
Oct 18, 2026, 10:51 AM@stavvers Sweet Valley High and Judy Blume books were read by girls, though. So they don't count. /s
Oct 18, 2026, 11:00 AM@stavvers I can remember friends reading SVH but I never had any incling to read them myself. I just wish someone had pointed me at Discworld sooner.
@stavvers back home in Australia we had such a rich variety of youth fiction pre-HP. I am not up to date on such things, but it feels sad to think HP "hype" may have erased that. Tomorrow When The War Began by John Marsden, Taronga by Victor Kelleher, Paul Jennings, Tim Winton... etc. Some strong reading memories. All still there to read today of course! If I had kids I'd like to think these things & more contemporary equivalents are what they would have on their bookshelves (but hell knows...)
HP was weird that in the late 90s I had friends my age reading it and loving it, I tried a couple but it seemed a bit meh to me (I was well into adults sci-fi by then, and Pratchett, and was several re-reads into Tolkien, so HP felt like very watered down B grade fantasy.)
"At least they were reading" ... I guess.