From Laura Lippman?s foreword??Some people are baffled by re-reading. What is the point? There?s so much else to read. With these essays, Lizzie Skurnick has answered those questions. It?s as if a kindly psychiatrist suddenly appeared with a sheaf of missing brain scans. Do you giggle when someone tells you to ?sit here for the present?? You are channeling RAMONA QUIMBY, who turned those simple words into a daunting challenge. Does the mere mention o f a mink-trimmed coat make you secretly swoon, even though you are rabidly anti-fur? You have ?A LITTLE PRINCES? complex. Do you long to cover your enemies with leeches? You?re having a ?LITTLE HOUSE? flashback? So stretch out on Dr. Lizzie?s couch and find out why you think it would be kind of cozy to be locked up in an attic with your brother. Or learn to dissect the subtle class consciousness of JUDY BLUME?s New Jersey. Ponder the way that LOIS DUNCAN?s characters come into unexpected powers, natural and supernatural alike, as they enter adolescence.? And most of all, enjoy.

Foreword : you are what you read / Laura Lippman -- Introduction : getting my period / Lizzie Skurnick -- Still checked out : YA heroines we'll never return -- She's at that age : girls on the verge -- Danger girls : I know what you did last summer (reading) -- Read 'em and weep : tearing up the pages -- You heard it here first : very afterschool specials -- Girls gone wild : runaways, left behinds, and ladies living off the fat of the land -- She comes by it supernaturally : girls who are gifted and talented -- Him she loves : romanced, rejected, affianced, dejected -- Old-fashioned girls : they wear bonnets, don't they? -- Panty lines : I can't believe they let us read this.