#16 Jessi's Secret Language, Chapters 1-3
Okay, AMM fucked with
kakeochi_umai's second language in Sweet Janine and Claudia the Mean. Now, she's fucking with mine. To be fair, it does appear that she actually did some research, but she got some major stuff wrong too.
This book is Jessi's first appearance as lead singer, and much like a drummer who's been handed a mic for the first time, she seriously hams it up. I actually rather like Jessi in some of the later books, but in this one she's unbearably obnoxious and self-important. They kicked David Ruffin out of the Temptations for that shit, Jessi. Check yourself. (Much like AMM, I love my outdated pop-culture references.)
"Jessi's learning a secret language for a very special child." I have a lot of problems with this blurb, but as I'm sure you can guess what they are, I won't dwell on this. Suffice it to say that if you call a deaf person 'special' to their face, their likely response will be, in the words of Logan, to "brain you."
Matt... looks completely unlike how I've always pictured him, but I have a long history of picturing the sitting charges "wrong". However, he definitely looks about four or five here. I know he's only supposed to be seven, but kids' proportions change a lot between four and seven, so that is a legit nitpick. Jessi, on the other hand, looks incredibly old here. I know she's supposed to be tall, but there is "tall" for eleven and then there's "tall" as a symptom of a pituitary disorder. She's only FOUR years older than Matt, Hodges.
Re: the signs. Matt's sign is legit, he's either signing "stand" or "dance" (without movement I can't tell). I have no idea what Jessi is signing, as my vocabulary isn't that broad (because unlike Jessi, actual people take years to master a foreign language), but it looks plausibly like a real sign.
Chapter One: Jessi doesn't even give us a grace period before she slams us with her pretentious bullshit. Literally the first paragraph is the infamous "practically bilingual" speech, and the second is about how good she is at ballet. She doesn't even add the standard "I'm not being conceited" line. Well, at least she's honest, even if not very modest.
After a confusing little piece about her mom hearing her wake up in the morning to practice ballet, Jessi launches into a description of her family. It's a pretty standard description, until you get to this statement, set apart in its own paragraph to emphasize the DRAMA:
"My family is black."
REALLY, Jessi? Your family is BLACK? Gosh, this changes everything. I'm just not sure if we can be friends anymore. I- Oh wait, I just remembered. It's not 1957, and I don't live in rural Alabama! I don't care! Just tell us vaguely what you look like and go on with the damn story!
But of course, she doesn't. Instead she snots that I'd probably assume she was white if she didn't straighten out my racist white ass. Actually, Jessi, no I wouldn't. For one, Hodges actually managed to paint you somewhere near the correct color for a change, so I already knew you were black. Plus, for years I assumed the Perkinses were black, until AMM hit me over the head with the "No one in Stoneybrook can be black unless their race is a plot device!" hammer. I'd probably assume quite a few characters to be black if I wasn't strictly told they weren't. Plus how do you know I'm not from Atlanta or Tuskegee or someplace, where I might actually assume most of the characters to be black? How do you know I'm not black? Not everyone is from Cracka McWhiteyville, Jessi.
After several pages of driving home how blackety black black she is, and how difficult this is (understandable, since Stoneybrook has not progressed past the early 1960s), she tells us she's auditioning for the lead role in the ballet Coppelia, subjecting both her audience and her family to a long-winded explanation of the ballet's plot. Okay, ballet is fun to do, and beautiful to watch. But to read about? Fucking boring. And we have to read about it a LOT in this book. Pardon me, whilst I fetch a drink.
Chapter Two: Jessi rushes in late to a meeting, and Kristy is just like, "That's okay" and actually smiles at her. Clearly Kristy has purchased some Valium from Sharon. Too bad Dawn never takes any. Jessi launches into the standard cult description, telling us that Kristy is "always beginning sentences with 'I know, let's...' or 'Hey, how about...'" Funny, I had a talking Barbie who always began sentences like that too. She usually finished them with "...get ice cream, with the boys!" or "...go to the mall, with Ken!" I named her Stacey.
Sadly, we don't get a Claudia outfit, but we do get a hilarious bit where Dawn announces that girls who can touch their nose with their tongue will eventually need "a very big bra". Sweetie, most women I know who need a "very big bra" also end up needing "very big surgery" to allieviate their "very big back pain". Jessi comments that she "doesn't see the vaguest connection between tongue-touching and bra size". You'll make a wise lesbian someday, Jess.
The chapter closes with the all-important phone call from Mrs. Braddock. Kristy explains that "Matt is deaf and uses Ameslan, whatever that is". Um, okay, I've been studying ASL for some time, and was interested in it since like first grade. And I have never, outside of this book, heard anyone refer to it as Ameslan. Never. I'm sure someone must have, at some point, because I doubt AMM would've made that up herself. But it's still nonstandard and confusing. Anyway, Jessi takes the job, of course, because it conveniently fits around her ballet schedule and club meetings. And because she's sooo good with languages.
Chapter Three: Remember how I said ballet is boring to read about? Well, that's what this chapter is. Ballet class. Yawn. We get to deal with Meeeeeme Noelle's horrible written accent, and dramallama because Katie Beth and Hilary are all jealous of Jessi for being the teacher's pet. Meeeeme plans to announce the roles for Coppelia at the end of class, and Jessi muses to herself that she probably won't get a role because "there probably weren't any black people in little European towns hundreds of years ago." Hey, I don't think there were many black people in little Western towns in the 1800s, but that didn't stop Will Smith from ruining a good Stevie Wonder song.
Naturally Jessi, being the Mary Sue of ballet class, gets the LEAD ROLE in the show (as Swanilda) despite being only ELEVEN. Katie Beth and Hilary (who are twelve) act all snotty, and I honestly can't blame them. The older girls in the class have been doing ballet a lot longer and are probably far more skilled. It would have made much more sense for Jessi to have a smaller role. Anyway, they call her a teacher's pet, and Jessi gets all butt-hurt and slinks away.
Next time! FOUR babysitting chapters in a row, plus MORE ballet class! Aren't you excited?
kakeochi_umai's second language in Sweet Janine and Claudia the Mean. Now, she's fucking with mine. To be fair, it does appear that she actually did some research, but she got some major stuff wrong too.
This book is Jessi's first appearance as lead singer, and much like a drummer who's been handed a mic for the first time, she seriously hams it up. I actually rather like Jessi in some of the later books, but in this one she's unbearably obnoxious and self-important. They kicked David Ruffin out of the Temptations for that shit, Jessi. Check yourself. (Much like AMM, I love my outdated pop-culture references.)
"Jessi's learning a secret language for a very special child." I have a lot of problems with this blurb, but as I'm sure you can guess what they are, I won't dwell on this. Suffice it to say that if you call a deaf person 'special' to their face, their likely response will be, in the words of Logan, to "brain you."
Matt... looks completely unlike how I've always pictured him, but I have a long history of picturing the sitting charges "wrong". However, he definitely looks about four or five here. I know he's only supposed to be seven, but kids' proportions change a lot between four and seven, so that is a legit nitpick. Jessi, on the other hand, looks incredibly old here. I know she's supposed to be tall, but there is "tall" for eleven and then there's "tall" as a symptom of a pituitary disorder. She's only FOUR years older than Matt, Hodges.
Re: the signs. Matt's sign is legit, he's either signing "stand" or "dance" (without movement I can't tell). I have no idea what Jessi is signing, as my vocabulary isn't that broad (because unlike Jessi, actual people take years to master a foreign language), but it looks plausibly like a real sign.
Chapter One: Jessi doesn't even give us a grace period before she slams us with her pretentious bullshit. Literally the first paragraph is the infamous "practically bilingual" speech, and the second is about how good she is at ballet. She doesn't even add the standard "I'm not being conceited" line. Well, at least she's honest, even if not very modest.
After a confusing little piece about her mom hearing her wake up in the morning to practice ballet, Jessi launches into a description of her family. It's a pretty standard description, until you get to this statement, set apart in its own paragraph to emphasize the DRAMA:
"My family is black."
REALLY, Jessi? Your family is BLACK? Gosh, this changes everything. I'm just not sure if we can be friends anymore. I- Oh wait, I just remembered. It's not 1957, and I don't live in rural Alabama! I don't care! Just tell us vaguely what you look like and go on with the damn story!
But of course, she doesn't. Instead she snots that I'd probably assume she was white if she didn't straighten out my racist white ass. Actually, Jessi, no I wouldn't. For one, Hodges actually managed to paint you somewhere near the correct color for a change, so I already knew you were black. Plus, for years I assumed the Perkinses were black, until AMM hit me over the head with the "No one in Stoneybrook can be black unless their race is a plot device!" hammer. I'd probably assume quite a few characters to be black if I wasn't strictly told they weren't. Plus how do you know I'm not from Atlanta or Tuskegee or someplace, where I might actually assume most of the characters to be black? How do you know I'm not black? Not everyone is from Cracka McWhiteyville, Jessi.
After several pages of driving home how blackety black black she is, and how difficult this is (understandable, since Stoneybrook has not progressed past the early 1960s), she tells us she's auditioning for the lead role in the ballet Coppelia, subjecting both her audience and her family to a long-winded explanation of the ballet's plot. Okay, ballet is fun to do, and beautiful to watch. But to read about? Fucking boring. And we have to read about it a LOT in this book. Pardon me, whilst I fetch a drink.
Chapter Two: Jessi rushes in late to a meeting, and Kristy is just like, "That's okay" and actually smiles at her. Clearly Kristy has purchased some Valium from Sharon. Too bad Dawn never takes any. Jessi launches into the standard cult description, telling us that Kristy is "always beginning sentences with 'I know, let's...' or 'Hey, how about...'" Funny, I had a talking Barbie who always began sentences like that too. She usually finished them with "...get ice cream, with the boys!" or "...go to the mall, with Ken!" I named her Stacey.
Sadly, we don't get a Claudia outfit, but we do get a hilarious bit where Dawn announces that girls who can touch their nose with their tongue will eventually need "a very big bra". Sweetie, most women I know who need a "very big bra" also end up needing "very big surgery" to allieviate their "very big back pain". Jessi comments that she "doesn't see the vaguest connection between tongue-touching and bra size". You'll make a wise lesbian someday, Jess.
The chapter closes with the all-important phone call from Mrs. Braddock. Kristy explains that "Matt is deaf and uses Ameslan, whatever that is". Um, okay, I've been studying ASL for some time, and was interested in it since like first grade. And I have never, outside of this book, heard anyone refer to it as Ameslan. Never. I'm sure someone must have, at some point, because I doubt AMM would've made that up herself. But it's still nonstandard and confusing. Anyway, Jessi takes the job, of course, because it conveniently fits around her ballet schedule and club meetings. And because she's sooo good with languages.
Chapter Three: Remember how I said ballet is boring to read about? Well, that's what this chapter is. Ballet class. Yawn. We get to deal with Meeeeeme Noelle's horrible written accent, and dramallama because Katie Beth and Hilary are all jealous of Jessi for being the teacher's pet. Meeeeme plans to announce the roles for Coppelia at the end of class, and Jessi muses to herself that she probably won't get a role because "there probably weren't any black people in little European towns hundreds of years ago." Hey, I don't think there were many black people in little Western towns in the 1800s, but that didn't stop Will Smith from ruining a good Stevie Wonder song.
Naturally Jessi, being the Mary Sue of ballet class, gets the LEAD ROLE in the show (as Swanilda) despite being only ELEVEN. Katie Beth and Hilary (who are twelve) act all snotty, and I honestly can't blame them. The older girls in the class have been doing ballet a lot longer and are probably far more skilled. It would have made much more sense for Jessi to have a smaller role. Anyway, they call her a teacher's pet, and Jessi gets all butt-hurt and slinks away.
Next time! FOUR babysitting chapters in a row, plus MORE ballet class! Aren't you excited?