TWINS

Mention of "notebooks" are all over the place. NYT's Judith Miller talked about hers multiple times in one radio interview. Add to all that this excerpt from the new book TWINS:

" The week before school started, I went shopping for school supplies, and every night before I fell asleep, I would look over my purchases. I bought a pink three ring binder and two thin spiral notebooks made from recycled paper, two boxes of extra fine pens, one black, one purple, a box of number two unsharpened pencils, two packages of pastel colored index cards, file folders, a lime green stapler, three pink high lighters, and a translucent pink pencil case. I had filled this pencil case with one purple pen, one black pen, a pink highlighter, an eraser and index cards. I had also bought an introduction to French book and a French-English dictionary, a Webster New World dictionary and two SAT study guides.

I hid these supplies under my bed but Sue found them. I had no lock for the door, and Sue found them one night when I was in the shower.

"You used to buy make-up," Sue said, tapping a pink highlighter on top of the dictionary. "Clothes."
I shrugged.

I used to be interested in clothes and make-up, but it seemed hopeless now. Lisa Markman was gone. Even though she wrote every once in awhile, I knew that we would never be friends. Even if Lisa continued to like me, Sue wouldn't allow it. No one who got close to me would ever be safe. That summer it began to feel ridiculous to worry about my appearance if I could not expect to have either friends or a boyfriend, so I decided that I would be smart instead of pretty. Every night, I studied for at least an hour before I went to sleep: irregular verbs for the French class I would take in the fall, vocabulary for the SATs.

"They have nothing to teach us at school, you know." Sue flipped through the pages of my SAT guide. She was rough with the book, purposefully ripping pages as she went. "I say we run away, join the circus or maybe go to Alaska on a fishing boat."

Sue put down my SAT guide and opened a new spiral notebook, uncapped a new purple pen, wrote Chloe and Sue's Adventures in Alaska. The notebook was ruined."

TWINS
By Marcy Dermansky

Book Link

[via Lauren Cerand]
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Update:

WIN A COPY OF TWINS!

Tell me why you must absolutely have and own a copy of this book. The best emailed response (in 300 words or less) gets the prize. Deadline is Sunday, November 20th at 12 Noon Central. Write 'TWINS" on the subject line. Winner will be announced on Monday, 11.21.05.