Boy Trouble

Tobey Heydon #3

by Rosamond du Jardin

All the fun of high school graduation and that special summer before college are heightened for Tobey Heydon when dashing Dick Allen adds his attentions to those she is receiving from her favorite young man, Brose Gilman. When Tobey meets a handsome and attentive artist, what will become of Brose?

Genres: Young Adult, Fiction, Childrens

149 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1953

About the author

Rosamond du Jardin, née Neal, first wrote humorous verse and short stories for newspaper syndicates, then went on to sell approximately a hundred stories to such magazines as Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, McCall's and many other publications, abroad as well as in the United States. She also wrote five novels for adults before her first novel for teenagers, Practically Seventeen, which was published in 1949.

She was married to Victor Du Jardin on October 28, 1925. They had three children, Jacqueline Neal, Victor Junior, and Judith Carol, with whom she would later co-author Junior Year Abroad.

In addition to writing, Mrs. Du Jardin frequently spoke at schools, and students enjoyed meeting in person the creator of some of their favorite stories. Mrs. Du Jardin enjoyed her school visits, too, because she liked and respected teenagers as individuals and firmly believed that they are interesting, normal and dependable people.

Born in the small town of Fairland, Illinois, Rosamond du Jardin was two years old when her family moved to Chicago. She lived there and in the Chicago suburbs for the rest of her life.

Reviews

[Kathryn · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this second-to-last installment in the Tobey Heydon's series, Tobey and her friends are about to graduate high school. Du Jardin does a beautiful job describing the jumble of feelings one experiences when crossing this threshold, by turns poignant and humorous. I especially enjoyed Tobey's ingenuity in coming up with a frugal way for more couples to enjoy the fun of a senior prom after-party when the expensive city-trip becomes too dear. The rest of the book stretches across the summer. There are a few sweet chapters with the nice older lady Tess Wentworth. Also, Tobey gets a job, flirts a bit more with Dick Allen (now in a handsome military uniform!) and annoys patient, faithful Brose some more in consequence. I admit some of these chapters did get a bit tedious--we've been here before with Tobey and Brose--and for this reason I think this is my least favorite of the series so far; I guess I just wish Tobey would have grown-up a bit more after all the "boy trouble" in the last book. I also wasn't a fan of Tobey's hypocritical side when her jealousy starts to come out as Brose has to entertain a rather attractive daughter of his mom's friend for part of the summer. But, then, jealousy is never very pretty. Finally, there's the handsome slightly-older-man artist Chris Claypool whom all the girls are crazy over during the summer vacation at Green Lake as the beach becomes a bit of an artists colony. Will Tobey and Brose weather all these distractions? I guess we'll find out in the last book if what they have together is "The Real Thing."

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's nothing of interest happening in Boy Trouble, so instead I will tell you about the time 10 or so years ago when I discovered this book series was back in print. It wasn't available on Amazon and no bookstores seemed to be carrying it, but I noticed that the university bookstore had a few books by the same small publisher, so I asked one of the employees if she could order it. She got on her wholesaler's website and asked me the author's name, which I pronounced as approximately, Ro-za-mond Do-Jar-den. Or, you know, like it's spelled.

Employee #1: Ro-zah-mahnd Dew Zhar-den?

Me: Sure.

She spent a few minutes unsuccessfully looking for it, then asked another employee for help.

Employee #1: The author's name is Ro-zah-mahnd Dew Zhar-den.

Employee #2: Rrro-zah-mahn Deh Zharr-dahn?

Employee #1 looked slightly embarrassed and quickly agreed that it was in fact, Rrro-zah-mahn Deh Zharr-dahn. Employee #2 took over the search and they began discussing how it might be listed on the site, repeating the author's name more times than strictly necessary, and each of them trying to outdo the other's fake French pronounciation. By the end, they were saying her name "Rrra-zaah-maaah Daah-Zhaaa-dahhh." And they never did find it, but it was okay because listening to the two of them was entertainment enough.

At any rate, when this series became available for the Kindle, I was pretty happy and ordered the first book immediately, but now that I'm three books into it, my reaction is pretty much:



As for Boy Trouble, it is basically the same book as Practically Seventeen and Class Ring, to wit: Tobey and Brose are going steady, but then some other boy or girl will come along to create a little drama. When Tobey schemes to show Brose that the other girl is no good, it backfires on her and she realizes that Brose is a great guy. When Brose schemes to show Tobey that the other boy is no good, it goes perfectly, and Tobey realizes that Brose is a great guy. In short, Brose good, and Tobey, well, Tobey not bad, but Tobey just a girl, so what do Tobey know? (I don't know why I'm talking this way.)

Words of wisdom from Tobey's dad: "When females are children, they treat males as friends and equals. But as they approach young maturity, I have noted this irresistable urge they seem to develop, this need to tease and torment their male admirers, to make their lives miserable."

Surely Tobey's mom will tell Tobey that dad is full of it, right? Let's see what Tobey's mom has to say: "It just seems to be the nature of women sometimes to be difficult." Then she makes an analogy where women are fish and men are the fishermen. Oh, Tobey's mom, how you disappoint me.

So that was Book 3. It's pretty boring due to being virtually indistinguishable from Book 2, but I'm giving it 3 stars because that's what I gave Book 2. No one needs to read both, though. Coming up in Book 4, The Real Thing: A Tobey Heydon Story, Tobey and Brose attend colleges 1000 miles away from each other. Will their love survive, or will Tobey finally realize she's not a fish?

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit on the silly side, but always fun to spend some time with Tobey.

[Grace · Rating 4 out of 5]

Du Jardin's stories are endlessly repetative, with a Perfectly Awful Girl always featured to steal away the cleancut goodlooking youth who really belongs to the heroine - Marcy, Tobey, whomever! And yet, this is another perfect maltshop book.

[Kristina · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can't believe that I missed this Tobey Heydon book when I was in middle school. I thought I had read all of that series 50 years ago, but I found a vintage copy of this at a used book sale recently and was so stoked that as soon as I got home, I picked it up and read the entire book in one sitting.

[Molly · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this book we see Tobey and Brose continue to take turns making each other jealous by going out with other boys/girls before concluding as usual that they're the only one for eachother.

Nothing very deep or thrilling here but it's a quick, easy and fun read and I continue to enjoy Tobey's family and their way of being.

[Melodie Mills · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it.

Such a fun read during these turbulent times.A simpler time with clever,witty characters and plot twists.Also love thr convo between characters and witty banter.The quirks of the main character make her so down to earth.Her solutions to problems are epic!

[Debbie Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cute teen read.

[girl writing]

Fun summer read revisiting a favorite series from childhood.

[P Bright · Rating 4 out of 5]

Delightful Series! So sweet and innocent!

[Lianne]

Boring

[mic jones · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5* rounded down. There wasn't much boy trouble; or, if that's what you would call the male interactions in the book, it wasn't that big of a deal.

[Nancy K · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved this book when I was younger.

[CLM · Rating 4 out of 5]

Third in the Tobey Heydon series.