Sylvia Smith-Smith

Sylvia Smith-Smith

by Pete Nelson

Sylvia struggles to deal with her dad's mid-life crisis, her mom's new single status, and her own troubles at school, including going to the prom with a guy who might be more trouble than he is worth. Reprint. AB. SLJ.

Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

Pete Nelson lives with his wife and son in Westchester, New York. He got his MFA from the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop in 1979 and has written both fiction and non-fiction for magazines, including Harpers, Playboy, Esquire, MS, Outside, The Iowa Review, National Wildlife, Glamour, Redbook. He was a columnist for Mademoiselle and a staff writer for LIVE Magazine, covering various live events including horse pulls, music festivals, dog shows, accordion camps and arm wrestling championships. Recently he was a contributing editor and feature writer for Wondertime, a Disney parenting magazine.

He's published twelve young adult novels, including a six-book series about a girl named Sylvia Smith-Smith which earned him an Edgar Award nomination from the Mystery Writers of America. His young adult non-fiction WWII history, Left For Dead (Randomhouse, 2002) about the sinking of the USS Indianapolis won the 2003 Christopher award as was named to the American Library Association's 2003 top ten list.

His other non-fiction titles include Real Man Tells All (Viking, 1988), Marry Like a Man (NAL, l992), That Others May Live (Crown, 2000) and Kidshape (Rutledge Hill, 2004). His novel The Christmas List was published by Rutledge Hill Press in 2004. He wrote, with former army counterintelligence agent Dave DeBatto, a four book series of military thrillers, including CI: Team Red (2005), CI: Dark Target (2006), CI: Mission Liberty (2006) and CI: Homeland Threat (2007) published by Time-Warner. A More Unbending Battle; The Harlem Hellfighters' Struggle for Democracy in WWI and Equality at Home, was published in 2009 by Basic Civitas books. His novel, I Thought You Were Dead, will be published by Algonquin in 2010. He also has two CDs out on the Signature Sounds label, the first entitled The Restless Boys Club (1996), the second called Days Like Horses (2000).

Reviews

[Julie Ehlers · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was just thinking about this quirky novel-in-stories, a random young-adult book published by a Harlequin imprint back in the 1980s, and which I read back then when I was a young adult myself. This book RULED. One particular story, about Sylvia playing a game of Trivial Pursuit with the grim reaper to try to keep her dog alive, still moves me to this day when I think about it. Fortunately, I did have the presence of mind to hang onto this book, so maybe one day I'll unearth it and read it again.

[Sandy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Used to love this book when I was younger. It was a fun re-read, but I never really realized just how much he tries to pack into this slim little novel. Sylvia is precocious and ahead of her times in this very old book.