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Taylor Twins #1
Two Much Alike
Connie is glad to be an identical twin because she has a sister and a best friend in one, until Carrie wants to be an individual.
176 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 2000
3 people are currently reading
44 people want to read
About the author
Bernice Thurman Hunter
19 books44 followers She was born in Toronto, Ontario, on November 3, 1922 and died May 29, 2002. She married her high school sweetheart, Lloyd Hunter, and had two children, Anita and Heather, and four grandchildren, Meredith, Lisa, Hunter and Franceline. No Greats.
Bernice was the middle child of 5 children (Wilma, Gordon, Bernice, Jack and Robert). She struggled in school because they moved so often. The Booky Trilogy, set during the Great Depression, depicts her family being forced to stay ahead of the bailiff, who threw them out when her unemployed father couldn't afford the rent. (Despite the hardships of poverty, it was her nature to be happy, so the books are upbeat.) They lived in Birchcliff and Swansea. The "new house" was on Cornell Avenue and she went to Birchcliff Public School, but most of her childhood and teens were spent on Lavinia, which is why Swansea claims her for their own. She attended Runnymede Collegiate, but didn't graduate because the war started and she went to work (depicted in The Girls They Left Behind). As a new bride, she lived on Gladstone Avenue in Toronto. Her husband was transferred to Peterborough, so they moved to Millbrook when her children were young. In 1956, she and her husband bought their own home on Meldazy Drive in a beautiful new subdivision in Scarborough, when McCowan was a gravel road and north of Ellesmere was farmland. Her books accurately depict these locales in different eras. Toronto is "a character" in her books.
She was interested in writing since early childhood and would often have a captive audience of school chums lined up along the curb to listen to her stories. In her teens, she met and had the temerity to present a story to her idol, L.M. Montgomery. The famous author of Anne Of Green Gables complimented Bernice: "Your characters ring true!...You have a good imagination" – blissful words for the young author's ears, but the next bit of advice was a crushing blow to the fourteen-year-old's already faltering self-esteem. Montgomery said, "A writer must have higher education -- it is imperative that you go to University." The young hopeful went away dejected. What Ms. Montgomery could not know was that Bernice came from a very poor background and had no hope of a University Education. The fateful words stayed buried in her heart for many years. An avid reader, she was self-educated. She often read a book in one night.
She continued to write because writing was as natural to her as breathing. When her own children were small, Bernice wrote for them an ongoing story about their lives in Millbrook, Ontario with themselves as heroines. (Her first manuscript, Kimberley of Millpond, has been published 55 years later in 2010 by her daughter.) Her stories were written in longhand because Bernice didn't own a typewriter. It was not until her children were grown that she decided to try to publish. She obtained an old Underwood typewriter and tapped out a story about her first grandchild, aptly titled, "A Grandchild Can Make Life Beautiful Again". She sent it to The Toronto Star and they published it and sent her a cheque for fifty-dollars. After that she wrote and published numerous stories for children in magazines and anthologies and then went on to publish 17 novels.
Bernice's novels, especially the "Booky" trilogy, are autobiographical in nature. Her strength as a writer lies in her ability to bring her childhood memories vividly to life for her young readers. Because the setting and tone of her novels accurately capture the past, she was acknowledged by the Toronto Historical Society and her books are used in history as well as language programs in schools. She was in constant demand as a guest speaker in schools and libraries across Canada and her daughter, Heather Hunter, now goes in her stead. Heather gives a power point presentation on Bernice's life and works.
Of her school visits, Bernice once said: "My favourite part of a school visit is 'que
Bernice was the middle child of 5 children (Wilma, Gordon, Bernice, Jack and Robert). She struggled in school because they moved so often. The Booky Trilogy, set during the Great Depression, depicts her family being forced to stay ahead of the bailiff, who threw them out when her unemployed father couldn't afford the rent. (Despite the hardships of poverty, it was her nature to be happy, so the books are upbeat.) They lived in Birchcliff and Swansea. The "new house" was on Cornell Avenue and she went to Birchcliff Public School, but most of her childhood and teens were spent on Lavinia, which is why Swansea claims her for their own. She attended Runnymede Collegiate, but didn't graduate because the war started and she went to work (depicted in The Girls They Left Behind). As a new bride, she lived on Gladstone Avenue in Toronto. Her husband was transferred to Peterborough, so they moved to Millbrook when her children were young. In 1956, she and her husband bought their own home on Meldazy Drive in a beautiful new subdivision in Scarborough, when McCowan was a gravel road and north of Ellesmere was farmland. Her books accurately depict these locales in different eras. Toronto is "a character" in her books.
She was interested in writing since early childhood and would often have a captive audience of school chums lined up along the curb to listen to her stories. In her teens, she met and had the temerity to present a story to her idol, L.M. Montgomery. The famous author of Anne Of Green Gables complimented Bernice: "Your characters ring true!...You have a good imagination" – blissful words for the young author's ears, but the next bit of advice was a crushing blow to the fourteen-year-old's already faltering self-esteem. Montgomery said, "A writer must have higher education -- it is imperative that you go to University." The young hopeful went away dejected. What Ms. Montgomery could not know was that Bernice came from a very poor background and had no hope of a University Education. The fateful words stayed buried in her heart for many years. An avid reader, she was self-educated. She often read a book in one night.
She continued to write because writing was as natural to her as breathing. When her own children were small, Bernice wrote for them an ongoing story about their lives in Millbrook, Ontario with themselves as heroines. (Her first manuscript, Kimberley of Millpond, has been published 55 years later in 2010 by her daughter.) Her stories were written in longhand because Bernice didn't own a typewriter. It was not until her children were grown that she decided to try to publish. She obtained an old Underwood typewriter and tapped out a story about her first grandchild, aptly titled, "A Grandchild Can Make Life Beautiful Again". She sent it to The Toronto Star and they published it and sent her a cheque for fifty-dollars. After that she wrote and published numerous stories for children in magazines and anthologies and then went on to publish 17 novels.
Bernice's novels, especially the "Booky" trilogy, are autobiographical in nature. Her strength as a writer lies in her ability to bring her childhood memories vividly to life for her young readers. Because the setting and tone of her novels accurately capture the past, she was acknowledged by the Toronto Historical Society and her books are used in history as well as language programs in schools. She was in constant demand as a guest speaker in schools and libraries across Canada and her daughter, Heather Hunter, now goes in her stead. Heather gives a power point presentation on Bernice's life and works.
Of her school visits, Bernice once said: "My favourite part of a school visit is 'que
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
August 8, 2019
So if you are looking for an intensely plot-driven type novel, Bernice Thurman Hunter's Two Much Alike (and actually most if not even all of the author's middle grade children's oeuvre) will likely not be all that much to your liking. However, if like me, you tend to enjoy quietly, softly presented (with ever present but generally understated emotionality) family type novels that above and beyond all first and foremost feel deliciously and palpably realistic (and as such also never, if historical in nature, anachronistic, in other words always geared towards both time and place) then by all means, do give this here author, do give Bernice Thurman Hunter a try (for in my own humble opinion, she is, or rather she was, one of the absolute queens of realistically portrayed middle grade historical fiction for children, and as such especially the past as she herself experienced it, namely the early to middle 20th century).
And with the Taylor family of 1950s Detroit (featuring an originally Canadian, but now American father, a United Kingdom mother and their four children, including identical twins Connie and Carrie), Bernice Thurman Hunter has deftly and without a doubt more than well established a believable, a very much realistic seeming and feeling middle class family of said era (both regarding time/place and also considering the socio-economic status of the Taylor family, with the father a full time employee of the Ford Motor Company, but unlike so many middle class working individuals of today, actually also being able to afford to own a small but detached family home, a house).
However, while throughout Two Much Alike, the two main characters presented (twins Connie and Carrie, with Connie narrating in the first person), their sibling squabbles are in many ways typically universal, the fact that they are indeed identical twins makes the conflicts and issues presented a bit more specific than simply general sibling rivalries. For while narrator Connie clearly loves and even needs and depends on her close relationship with and to Carrie, Carrie herself (who has always been the more outgoing and adventurous of the twins) is now as both are getting a bit older sometimes a bit tired of being a twin, of always wearing the same outfits as Connie, of having the same friends, of always doing most things together (wanting in her own words to "individuate" to not always be doing everything with Connie, something that Connie both resents and also needs a bit of time to adequately come to terms with).
Gently told, and with even the presented and featured crises (such as the suicide of Connie's friend's mother) and when at the end of Two Much Alike, Connie's identical blood type saves her sister's life, not ever overly exaggerated and to and for me rather delightfully and wondrously understated, this is a novel that both celebrates family and yes also shows the importance of individuality, of becoming one's own person (so that by the end of Two Much Alike, while Connie has learned to accept change and that her sister wanting to individuate a bit is not a threat to their relationship as sisters, as twins, Carrie has also realised that she might have been going a bit overboard and not taken her sister's feelings of neglect and abandonment seriously enough, that she does still love being Connie's identical twin sister, but that both of them do need to also create their own and yes separate from each other personalities and spaces).
And with the Taylor family of 1950s Detroit (featuring an originally Canadian, but now American father, a United Kingdom mother and their four children, including identical twins Connie and Carrie), Bernice Thurman Hunter has deftly and without a doubt more than well established a believable, a very much realistic seeming and feeling middle class family of said era (both regarding time/place and also considering the socio-economic status of the Taylor family, with the father a full time employee of the Ford Motor Company, but unlike so many middle class working individuals of today, actually also being able to afford to own a small but detached family home, a house).
However, while throughout Two Much Alike, the two main characters presented (twins Connie and Carrie, with Connie narrating in the first person), their sibling squabbles are in many ways typically universal, the fact that they are indeed identical twins makes the conflicts and issues presented a bit more specific than simply general sibling rivalries. For while narrator Connie clearly loves and even needs and depends on her close relationship with and to Carrie, Carrie herself (who has always been the more outgoing and adventurous of the twins) is now as both are getting a bit older sometimes a bit tired of being a twin, of always wearing the same outfits as Connie, of having the same friends, of always doing most things together (wanting in her own words to "individuate" to not always be doing everything with Connie, something that Connie both resents and also needs a bit of time to adequately come to terms with).
Gently told, and with even the presented and featured crises (such as the suicide of Connie's friend's mother) and when at the end of Two Much Alike, Connie's identical blood type saves her sister's life, not ever overly exaggerated and to and for me rather delightfully and wondrously understated, this is a novel that both celebrates family and yes also shows the importance of individuality, of becoming one's own person (so that by the end of Two Much Alike, while Connie has learned to accept change and that her sister wanting to individuate a bit is not a threat to their relationship as sisters, as twins, Carrie has also realised that she might have been going a bit overboard and not taken her sister's feelings of neglect and abandonment seriously enough, that she does still love being Connie's identical twin sister, but that both of them do need to also create their own and yes separate from each other personalities and spaces).
January 13, 2019
This was one of my favourite reads during my childhood especially heightened by the Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen frenzy that the eighties/nineties children knew so well (I had the books, the movies, the dolls, the magazine, etc). I remember picking this book up at a Scholastic Book fair, reading it, and then rereading it immediately after. Prior to the Harry Potter series, this was my absolute favourite book no questions asked.
I think what especially intrigued me at the time (and still is one of the reasons I love this story now) was that this book was set in 1953/1954 and that the timeframe played into the story quite a lot. From the language that was being used, to the television set, and the fashion. Everything sounded so unlike what I grew up with but at the core, the main character of Connie felt the same as me as a younger girl.
Related to the years that this book was set in, I think it was so accurately and well done because of the author. The author was older when she began writing these novels and she lived through that timeframe. The story and era was not based on purely research, it was also based on what the author lived through and I think that is why the novel felt so real.
Along with the story being a story of a typical girl growing up, it also broached important topics some of which being death, poverty, disability, and more. This allowed my younger self to learn of these things in a casual way where it didn’t feel as if I was “learning”. Now, I’m able to see the importance of these topics being included in a story, but at a younger age it would have just become a part of the story and I wouldn’t have known any difference.
I really enjoyed this reread because not only did I like the story, but I liked the nostalgia that it brought with it. Memories of reading (and rereading) a favourite book as a younger girl, not knowing what lay ahead.
I think what especially intrigued me at the time (and still is one of the reasons I love this story now) was that this book was set in 1953/1954 and that the timeframe played into the story quite a lot. From the language that was being used, to the television set, and the fashion. Everything sounded so unlike what I grew up with but at the core, the main character of Connie felt the same as me as a younger girl.
Related to the years that this book was set in, I think it was so accurately and well done because of the author. The author was older when she began writing these novels and she lived through that timeframe. The story and era was not based on purely research, it was also based on what the author lived through and I think that is why the novel felt so real.
Along with the story being a story of a typical girl growing up, it also broached important topics some of which being death, poverty, disability, and more. This allowed my younger self to learn of these things in a casual way where it didn’t feel as if I was “learning”. Now, I’m able to see the importance of these topics being included in a story, but at a younger age it would have just become a part of the story and I wouldn’t have known any difference.
I really enjoyed this reread because not only did I like the story, but I liked the nostalgia that it brought with it. Memories of reading (and rereading) a favourite book as a younger girl, not knowing what lay ahead.
May 7, 2013
I read this when I was really really young. And it was great, definitely a great recommendation for any young girl. It's a great coming of age story and so is it's sequel. :)
April 22, 2018
I'm marking it higher for nostalgic reasons. I always had the second book and I would read it like allll the time. I would constantly read about the Taylor Twins and I always wanted more. When I found out it was the second book and found the first one I was so excited because a brand new Taylor twins story. I didn't like the first book as much first time around and now that I own my own copy (yes it's dumb but I finally got a copy for myself so I could have both to myself). I didn't like Connie as much in the first book. I understood how she felt lonely with Carrie branching out but still it was a bit much, people are allowed to be their own person, not always half of a set.
4/5
4/5
July 29, 2009
The one twin who doesn't want to let her sister do her own thing is annoying. I can see the other one's point of view much better. But all in all, I really liked this book.
Wooo scholastic book club!
Wooo scholastic book club!
December 14, 2010
I LOVED THIS BOOK AND I AM IN THE MIDDLE OF IT AND IT MAY BE THE BEST BOOK I HAVE READ THIS PAST 4 YEARS (I AND READ ALOT IN THOOSE 4 YEARS!!)
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December 7, 2012Very good! It was very interesting. It actually made me want to have a twin!
April 3, 2024
I read this book in 5th grade and I loved it so much that I’ve kept my copy since (I’m now 35.) I decided to read it again and I remember why I loved it so much but I don’t remember it being this emotional! I also love books that are set in the 1950s so that’s a bonus too! It’s a quick and easy read.
October 29, 2024
One of my favourite books as a kid! Very fond memories reading it. Would love to get my hands on a copy.
December 26, 2019
I used to love this book as a child.
April 28, 2021
Very good I loved the family I also liked it that the year 1954 about the first 📺TV
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews