Category: Theme: lies

Jessica the TV Star (Sweet Valley Kids #16)

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tvstar

The Basics

Title: Jessica the TV Star
Series: Sweet Valley Kids #16
Published: March 1991

The Plot

When Elizabeth stays home from school one day with a stomach ache, Jessica goes by herself. As she isn’t wearing her name bracelet, the other children don’t know for sure which twin she is, so she decides to pretend to be Elizabeth for the day, just for fun.

But then Todd tells Jessica a secret, thinking that she’s Elizabeth—a TV show is going to be filmed at his house, and he’s going to be in it. He’s allowed to ask a female friend to be in the show too, and he wants that friend to be Elizabeth.

Jessica knows that she should tell the truth, but she really wants to be on TV. So she keeps up the pretence and sneaks around behind Elizabeth’s back, lying where necessary to make sure she stays away from Todd’s house. Elizabeth is completely confused, both by Jessica’s strange behaviour and by the fact that Todd keeps saying things to her that don’t make any sense. Meanwhile, Jessica hasn’t been able to resist telling Lila and Ellen about the top secret TV taping. They’ll be able to keep it a secret, right? …Right?

Eventually, Elizabeth heads over to Todd’s place of her own accord, determined to find out what’s going on. The Wilkins’ house is surrounded by film crew and excited second grade kids. Unsurprisingly, Lila and/or Ellen has let the cat out of the bag. Jessica’s deception is revealed, no one is quite as angry as you’d expect, and both of the twins end up getting to be in the TV show, although it’s hardly a starring role.

The Verdict

I enjoyed this one. It feels very much like the Jessica of the later series—this is absolutely the kind of thing she’d do as a twelve-year-old or sixteen-year-old, and older Todd would probably be just as bad at realising he’s talking to the wrong twin.

Major Characters

Bit Parts

The Places

  • The Wilkins Home: A few blocks away from the Wakefields’ house.

The Themes

  • Lies, twin swap, film and TV

 

Jessica’s Big Mistake (Sweet Valley Kids #7)

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bigmistake

The Basics

Title: Jessica’s Big Mistake
Series: Sweet Valley Kids #7
Published: May 1990

The Plot

Mrs. Becker’s second grade class at Sweet Valley Elementary School is super excited, because a famous author is going to visit their class. Elizabeth is especially looking forward to it, because Angela Daley is her favourite author. Mrs. Becker tells the kids that one of them will be chosen for the special (i.e. dubious) honour of helping Daley sign books. The lucky winner will be the person who does the most special thing to welcome the author to their class.

The kids all want to be chosen, so they think of the best things to do to impress Mrs. Becker. Jessica and Caroline compete to be the most helpful student during class, and Lila boasts about her wealthy father’s connections to everyone famous in Hollywood. (Apparently all authors are extremely rich and famous and wear diamonds while riding around in limousines. This small-time author would beg to differ!)

Elizabeth decides that she wants to write a story for Angela Daley to read, and writes what she thinks is her best story ever: a tale called The Otter’s Daughters. She’s then silly enough to leave her draft in the twins’ shared bedroom bin, meaning that Jessica just happens to stumble upon it when putting something in the bin herself. Jessica realises that a story would be the perfect thing to hand in for the contest and justifies stealing Elizabeth’s because they’re twins and that means that they’re basically the same person.

Of course, in the end Jessica finds out that Elizabeth has submitted the same story to Mrs. Becker and she rushes to get her version back before anyone finds out. Mrs. Becker has already worked out what happened, however, and Liz discovers Jessica’s betrayal as well. It’s all okay, though, because Liz forgives Jess (as always) and Angela Daley loves Elizabeth’s story and reads it out to the class. As her reward, Liz gets to take books out of a bag and hand them over to be signed. Now that is a prize worth vying for.

The Verdict

I enjoyed Jessica’s mental gymnastics in this one. They made her seem more like the older Jess than she has up to now in Sweet Valley Kids. On the whole, the story struggles a little to keep up momentum, with the discussions between the kids about what they intend to do for Angela Daley feeling a bit like they were inserted to make up the standard 72 or 73 pages.

Major Characters

Minor Characters

Bit Parts

The Fashion

  • Angela Daley’s outfit: a bright blue dress and a red scarf with a colourful design around the edges

The Pairings

  • Elizabeth/Todd: Liz thinks Todd is cute

The Themes

  • Plagiarism, lies, celebrities, competitions