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Memo: To Myself When I Have a Teenage Kid
For Karen, being thirteen isn't easy. It means fights with her bratty sister and having to ask a boy to the Sadie Hawkins Winter Switch Dance. Worst of all, she is convinced her mother doesn't know what she's going through. Then, Karen reads the diary her mother wrote when she was thirteen. What secrets will the diary reveal?
155 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1983
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December 7, 2022Memo To Myself When I Have A Teenage Kid
Karen’s sister Beth (whose 11) is driving her crazy by hogging the bathroom on a very important day. It’s the day she plans to ask Peter Raskin-the boy she secretly loves-to the Winter Switch Dance.
She takes a moment to wonder about an old man she always see’s outside and getting up the courage to ask him who he is and why he always pauses and looks at her house
At the bus stop and sees, Peter asks her about a math problem but the target of his snowball is for another girl named (Dana). Dana is the bad girl type (she curses and smokes). Apparently throwing snowballs is a surefire sign a boy wants to get with you..
Scott (her BFF) tells her on the bus that Lori Blake asked him to the dance but he didn’t give her an answer. When they get off the bus Karen joins her other friend Allison then feels a snowball smack her from behind and Peter waves and rushes off.
Karen decides to go ahead and buy tickets. Just as Karen reaches the front, the girl selling the tickets announces they’re sold out due to limited space.
School is cut short because of heavy snow and this ruins Karen’s plans of talking to Joey (the middle school scalper) at lunch because he’s already left on one of the buses. Scott says she should still ask Peter on the bus, but Karen’s mom shows up to pick them up.
At home, her mother tells her she has something to show her and gives her diary at 13. Karen and her mother start to bond over school dances and someone her mother has referred to as Mr. X (the older man she’s in love with). But she keeps getting interrupted by her friend Allison to call Peter.
When Karen finally stops procrastinating and looks up Peter’s number in the phone book it’s not listed. So she calls Scott over and tells him to bring the number.
Karen goes to help her dad in the basement and while they work on the hand she finds out he has a memorabilia box and offers to show it to her later.
Scott doesn’t have the number but Karen’s little sister (Jillie) does. Peter’s sister is in her class and her Mom has a list of all her classmate’s numbers. Peter says he’ll give her the answer in math class. Scott calls Lori and tells her yes.
The next day she writes in her memo to myself notebook and speaks to the old man but doesn’t ask him what she had planned to.
Peter doesn’t speak to her at the bus stop but throws another snowball at her, which makes her throw her own snowball up in joy.
At school, she gets called to the office, but it’s crowded and she gets sent back to class. In class, Peter does tell her, yes, but she and the rest of the class are soon brought to the attention that an ambulance is out the window. When Karen looks she sees it’s the old man. Karen finds out that some kids threw a snowball at the man and after he chased them they collapsed. Because of this, the dance gets canceled.
At the end of the day all the kids practically start a riot and Dana tells Karen she’s the one that should go speak to the principal because the old man had called her name and that’s why the dance was called off.
Karen speaks to the principal and tells her side of the story, learns the man’s name (Mr. Alexandrov), and tells him she’ll visit him in the hospital. They then come to the agreement to postpone the dance until spring (so all the snow will be melted and no snowballs will be thrown).
Inspired by her mom’s diary, when Peter calls she invites him to a pizza party, but he invites Dana. Scott then gets in touch with his Dad (when Karen can’t) and says she can visit Mr. Alexandrov. She invites Ali and Scott over and they both say they can come to the party.
Jill and Beth overhear about the man and tell their mom and Dad. The mom agrees to take Karen to the hospital and on the way, she fills her in on what happened. The old man (Charlie) tells her it’s not her fault and he was calling to her because she’d dropped a letter she’d written (for class) to her grandfather and he was so moved by the emotion in it that he tried to give it to her. He then asks for a favor and gives her a map for a route he does daily.
The parents agree -not happily-that she can have the party. They want it to have a 50’s theme, but Karen shoots the idea down.
The party starts with them playing Truth or Dare. Dana gives Peter a truth question and asks him who he likes. He asks her for a dare. She tells him to kiss Karen. He says he will but later. Then Dana dares Karen to show them the bionic hand, but Karen says it’s off-limits and diverts their attention. Peter announces Dana’s good at card tricks and this gets everyone’s mind off it.
Mr. Alexandrov stops by for a minute (second time) After they eat, they play “Post Office” and Karen and Peter go upstairs. Peter explains the situation with Dana and that they went to a special disability school together and that he just didn’t want her to feel left out. Then he gives her a pizza-flavored kiss.
Later she and her mother share a moment where she starts her own diary and lets her mother read some of it Her mother then reveals Mr. X to be her Dad, and she gives her one of the diary's ripped-out pages.
The mom has some other diaries but she’ll give those to Beth and Jill and also some love letters. Those she’s not sharing. Karen continues to do the route with Charlie and sometimes her friend’s help.
My Thoughts:
I really liked this book. There was so much warmth and heartfelt moments between the characters. Even though Karen fought with Beth and Jillie you could feel their bond when Jillie wanted so bad to help her big sister with getting Peter’s number and the party.
Then when Beth wished her luck with the call and they walked together and did the route. It just seemed like Beth wanted to be like her big sister. I never really had that kind of relationship with my sister.
Then I thought about how Karen and her Dad bonded while working on his project (and I was half thinking because I hadn’t read this that she was going to let them in the basement and they’d do something to mess up all his hard work). But I thought about the closest thing I could relate to that being when my Dad once owned a special equipment store for occupational therapy and helping him out at the store.
Peter and Karen just took me back to the days when I had that young kind of love that makes you have butteries when you call them and they do something that turns you inside out.
Peter expressed his love with snowballs. For me, it was the guy I liked wrote me love letters. We went to separate schools. I really wished I would have saved them but I probably tore them up (a whole nother story).
Then there was the relationship with Karen and her mother. I use to have different diaries and I probably still have the ones I wrote in the 7th grade about my crush (what a disappointment *he* turned out to be years later). But my mother has never shared a part of her past with me when she was younger. It’s hard to even imagine her younger like that because she gives off this perfect kind of image.
My other mom has shared personal stories with me. But it was just a nice feeling to read about a mother and a daughter being able to relate to each other.
I didn’t have any complaints about this book, other than I felt like Peter could have told Karen the truth *sooner* about what Dana was to him. He should have WAY before he had her alone in a closet.
And I didn’t agree with initially canceling this dance because some kids threw snowballs and a man got hurt. I would have called some in for questioning and maybe punished the ones that *were* guilty. Maybe Madison School needs a camera set up outside, because COME ON! We all know that the incident will be forgotten when it gets old and they’ll go right back to throwing snowballs.
I also have written a list of the memo's a long time ago what I wouldn't do if I had a daughter so this I understood as well.
But I wish there would have been a book after this to show Karen years later and did she marry Peter. Even if she would have married someone else and had daughters I think some of those memos as a parent she definitely would have a different POV about.
Rating: 10
Rating: 10
Karen’s sister Beth (whose 11) is driving her crazy by hogging the bathroom on a very important day. It’s the day she plans to ask Peter Raskin-the boy she secretly loves-to the Winter Switch Dance.
She takes a moment to wonder about an old man she always see’s outside and getting up the courage to ask him who he is and why he always pauses and looks at her house
At the bus stop and sees, Peter asks her about a math problem but the target of his snowball is for another girl named (Dana). Dana is the bad girl type (she curses and smokes). Apparently throwing snowballs is a surefire sign a boy wants to get with you..
Scott (her BFF) tells her on the bus that Lori Blake asked him to the dance but he didn’t give her an answer. When they get off the bus Karen joins her other friend Allison then feels a snowball smack her from behind and Peter waves and rushes off.
Karen decides to go ahead and buy tickets. Just as Karen reaches the front, the girl selling the tickets announces they’re sold out due to limited space.
School is cut short because of heavy snow and this ruins Karen’s plans of talking to Joey (the middle school scalper) at lunch because he’s already left on one of the buses. Scott says she should still ask Peter on the bus, but Karen’s mom shows up to pick them up.
At home, her mother tells her she has something to show her and gives her diary at 13. Karen and her mother start to bond over school dances and someone her mother has referred to as Mr. X (the older man she’s in love with). But she keeps getting interrupted by her friend Allison to call Peter.
When Karen finally stops procrastinating and looks up Peter’s number in the phone book it’s not listed. So she calls Scott over and tells him to bring the number.
Karen goes to help her dad in the basement and while they work on the hand she finds out he has a memorabilia box and offers to show it to her later.
Scott doesn’t have the number but Karen’s little sister (Jillie) does. Peter’s sister is in her class and her Mom has a list of all her classmate’s numbers. Peter says he’ll give her the answer in math class. Scott calls Lori and tells her yes.
The next day she writes in her memo to myself notebook and speaks to the old man but doesn’t ask him what she had planned to.
Peter doesn’t speak to her at the bus stop but throws another snowball at her, which makes her throw her own snowball up in joy.
At school, she gets called to the office, but it’s crowded and she gets sent back to class. In class, Peter does tell her, yes, but she and the rest of the class are soon brought to the attention that an ambulance is out the window. When Karen looks she sees it’s the old man. Karen finds out that some kids threw a snowball at the man and after he chased them they collapsed. Because of this, the dance gets canceled.
At the end of the day all the kids practically start a riot and Dana tells Karen she’s the one that should go speak to the principal because the old man had called her name and that’s why the dance was called off.
Karen speaks to the principal and tells her side of the story, learns the man’s name (Mr. Alexandrov), and tells him she’ll visit him in the hospital. They then come to the agreement to postpone the dance until spring (so all the snow will be melted and no snowballs will be thrown).
Inspired by her mom’s diary, when Peter calls she invites him to a pizza party, but he invites Dana. Scott then gets in touch with his Dad (when Karen can’t) and says she can visit Mr. Alexandrov. She invites Ali and Scott over and they both say they can come to the party.
Jill and Beth overhear about the man and tell their mom and Dad. The mom agrees to take Karen to the hospital and on the way, she fills her in on what happened. The old man (Charlie) tells her it’s not her fault and he was calling to her because she’d dropped a letter she’d written (for class) to her grandfather and he was so moved by the emotion in it that he tried to give it to her. He then asks for a favor and gives her a map for a route he does daily.
The parents agree -not happily-that she can have the party. They want it to have a 50’s theme, but Karen shoots the idea down.
The party starts with them playing Truth or Dare. Dana gives Peter a truth question and asks him who he likes. He asks her for a dare. She tells him to kiss Karen. He says he will but later. Then Dana dares Karen to show them the bionic hand, but Karen says it’s off-limits and diverts their attention. Peter announces Dana’s good at card tricks and this gets everyone’s mind off it.
Mr. Alexandrov stops by for a minute (second time) After they eat, they play “Post Office” and Karen and Peter go upstairs. Peter explains the situation with Dana and that they went to a special disability school together and that he just didn’t want her to feel left out. Then he gives her a pizza-flavored kiss.
Later she and her mother share a moment where she starts her own diary and lets her mother read some of it Her mother then reveals Mr. X to be her Dad, and she gives her one of the diary's ripped-out pages.
The mom has some other diaries but she’ll give those to Beth and Jill and also some love letters. Those she’s not sharing. Karen continues to do the route with Charlie and sometimes her friend’s help.
My Thoughts:
I really liked this book. There was so much warmth and heartfelt moments between the characters. Even though Karen fought with Beth and Jillie you could feel their bond when Jillie wanted so bad to help her big sister with getting Peter’s number and the party.
Then when Beth wished her luck with the call and they walked together and did the route. It just seemed like Beth wanted to be like her big sister. I never really had that kind of relationship with my sister.
Then I thought about how Karen and her Dad bonded while working on his project (and I was half thinking because I hadn’t read this that she was going to let them in the basement and they’d do something to mess up all his hard work). But I thought about the closest thing I could relate to that being when my Dad once owned a special equipment store for occupational therapy and helping him out at the store.
Peter and Karen just took me back to the days when I had that young kind of love that makes you have butteries when you call them and they do something that turns you inside out.
Peter expressed his love with snowballs. For me, it was the guy I liked wrote me love letters. We went to separate schools. I really wished I would have saved them but I probably tore them up (a whole nother story).
Then there was the relationship with Karen and her mother. I use to have different diaries and I probably still have the ones I wrote in the 7th grade about my crush (what a disappointment *he* turned out to be years later). But my mother has never shared a part of her past with me when she was younger. It’s hard to even imagine her younger like that because she gives off this perfect kind of image.
My other mom has shared personal stories with me. But it was just a nice feeling to read about a mother and a daughter being able to relate to each other.
I didn’t have any complaints about this book, other than I felt like Peter could have told Karen the truth *sooner* about what Dana was to him. He should have WAY before he had her alone in a closet.
And I didn’t agree with initially canceling this dance because some kids threw snowballs and a man got hurt. I would have called some in for questioning and maybe punished the ones that *were* guilty. Maybe Madison School needs a camera set up outside, because COME ON! We all know that the incident will be forgotten when it gets old and they’ll go right back to throwing snowballs.
I also have written a list of the memo's a long time ago what I wouldn't do if I had a daughter so this I understood as well.
But I wish there would have been a book after this to show Karen years later and did she marry Peter. Even if she would have married someone else and had daughters I think some of those memos as a parent she definitely would have a different POV about.
Rating: 10
Rating: 10
July 23, 2020
A friend loaned me this as a relic from her childhood. It was extremely charming, but oh my gosh do the mentions of a hint of a relationship between a 13-year-old and an 18-year-old hit differently in 2020 than they probably did when the book was published
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 11, 2023
I loved this book when I was a kid. I even started writing in a diary to plan to give tome kids one day. My best friend and I named a boy we liked Mr X and only we knew what it was referenced about. Great story about coming of age, but in a simpler world before electronics
September 18, 2017
I loved it!! I need a seccond one!!
July 25, 2014
Thirteen year old Karen Berman lives with her dad, an inventor; her mom, a writer; her two younger sisters, eleven year old Beth and Kindergarten age Jill; and her pet parakeet Bruno. Her best friends at Madison School are Allison and Scott, but she is secretly in love with Peter Raskin. She wants to ask him to the Sadie Hawkins Winter Switch Dance but has trouble working up the courage to do so. At home, there are always little problems with parents and siblings, so Karen writes, “MEMO: To myself when I have a teenage kid. It will not have a sister two years younger, and I will never forget what it feels like to be thirteen.”
Karen’s mother gives her the diary that she wrote when she was thirteen to help Karen understand both her mother and herself better. However, right before the dance, Karen gets in trouble at school for throwing a snowball that someone claims hit an old man, Mr. Alexandrov, and knocked him down, so the dance is cancelled. Will everyone blame Karen? Can she ever find the courage to let Peter know how she feels? What will happen? There is a good story here that makes several beneficial points, but there are also a few problems that some parents would want to know about. In addition to common euphemisms like “heck” and “darn,” one girl at school named Dana not only smokes but nearly every time she opens her mouth utters the “d” word. It is later learned that this girl has a learning disability. A couple of other references to “cursing” are mentioned as though everyone does it so it’s no big deal. Karen herself says, “God knows what reason,” in a rather casual way.
I suppose that some authors of books for young adults feel that they must include such things to make their stories sound “realistic” and “relevant” to today’s kids. Also, the book has thirteen year olds involved in wearing makeup and playing spin the bottle, post office, and other kissing games, and one kissing scene occurs. And the whole plot revolves around a dance, all of which characterize the typical public school experience. Worldly people may not have a whole lot of problems with these things, but godly parents who feel that society is pushing sexualization onto children far too early may not care for all the “boy-girl” emphasis. The plot would be much more appealing to girls than boys, but I would still suggest it more for older than younger teens. From a positive standpoint, the good lessons include learning to understand and respect parents, not judging others too harshly before knowing all their circumstances, and showing concern for the needs of others. I just wish that the language were better.
Karen’s mother gives her the diary that she wrote when she was thirteen to help Karen understand both her mother and herself better. However, right before the dance, Karen gets in trouble at school for throwing a snowball that someone claims hit an old man, Mr. Alexandrov, and knocked him down, so the dance is cancelled. Will everyone blame Karen? Can she ever find the courage to let Peter know how she feels? What will happen? There is a good story here that makes several beneficial points, but there are also a few problems that some parents would want to know about. In addition to common euphemisms like “heck” and “darn,” one girl at school named Dana not only smokes but nearly every time she opens her mouth utters the “d” word. It is later learned that this girl has a learning disability. A couple of other references to “cursing” are mentioned as though everyone does it so it’s no big deal. Karen herself says, “God knows what reason,” in a rather casual way.
I suppose that some authors of books for young adults feel that they must include such things to make their stories sound “realistic” and “relevant” to today’s kids. Also, the book has thirteen year olds involved in wearing makeup and playing spin the bottle, post office, and other kissing games, and one kissing scene occurs. And the whole plot revolves around a dance, all of which characterize the typical public school experience. Worldly people may not have a whole lot of problems with these things, but godly parents who feel that society is pushing sexualization onto children far too early may not care for all the “boy-girl” emphasis. The plot would be much more appealing to girls than boys, but I would still suggest it more for older than younger teens. From a positive standpoint, the good lessons include learning to understand and respect parents, not judging others too harshly before knowing all their circumstances, and showing concern for the needs of others. I just wish that the language were better.
June 7, 2016
Like many teenagers, Karen is irritated with her family and assumes no one understands her. This is, until her mother gives Karen her diary from when her mother was a teenager, too, leaving Karen to find herself and enjoy the company of her family. In my opinion, the book was very good because it very vividly shows the struggles and the connections of a teenage girl and her mother.
March 10, 2016
Thirteen year old Karen has thirteen year old problems that she doesn't think her mother knows anything about.
But then her mother presents her with the diary she had when she was thirteen, and Karen sees her mother and herself in a whole new light.
But then her mother presents her with the diary she had when she was thirteen, and Karen sees her mother and herself in a whole new light.
August 16, 2007
I'm pretty sure I read this when in 1988!!!! First real book I ever read cover to cover when I was a kid! Wonder if I'd like it now?
December 10, 2009
I remembered thinking this was a great book when I was in middle school. Made me (sort of) realize that my Mom was human...
May 26, 2011
I read this when I was a pre-teen/teenager. It inspired me to keep a diary that I planned on giving to my own children when they became teenagers.
June 5, 2013
It was a cute kids story about the whole coming-of-age thing and a childish mystery and a boy-girl party. Nothing spectacular but a fun, fluffy read.
February 8, 2016
3.5* cute with good messages, if somewhat predictable and preachy. The main character isn't too good though, which helps.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews