The Pink Dress

When I was in Grade 9 I stumbled on the book “The Pink Dress” by Anne Alexander and simply fell in love with the story.  It was one of my first teenage books from “modern” times (it was published in 1959) and the story was relatable to the current drama of a 14 year old.  In a nutshell good girl meets wild boy, rival girlfriend, The Crowd, shoplifting, vandalism and happy ending.  Flash forward some 20 odd years and I found myself wanting to read the book again so I began searching for it in used book stores to no avail.  More time passed and I forgot about it.

Wandering through my bookshelves and searching for free books on Kindle I thought “well, why not see if the book is available on Kindle”.  To my delight it was available but the cost was $9.99.  Silly me I threw caution to the wind and decided to buy it.  I shouldn’t say “silly me” because I dove into the book right away and gobbled it up in record time.  All these years later I find the book is still very current and relevant today.  Teenagers are still trying to fit in, have a boyfriend and at the same time make good choices.  It is an enjoyable read and the morality is valid as much today as it ever was. 

When I go to the teen or young adult section at the book store I am quite disturbed by how violent many of the book covers are and it is very worrying that so many of the books deal with violence, bad behavior and vampires or other supernatural creatures.  A little of that goes a long way in my opinion.

This morning I saw an article online about a Wisconsin school board having to back down from reading a book about a transgender because some parents got upset.  You really have to wonder about people being such ostriches; it’s okay for children to read about all kinds of wicked things but to actually learn about something real and relevant today is a bad thing? News flash, learning about a transgender person is not going to automatically affect your child with the same feelings.

Sometimes there is no understanding people.