Magazine Madness And/Or Mania: Making Holiday Treats With Winona Ryder (Seventeen, December 1990)

Posted on December 24, 2025 by mondomolly

Still have a few names on on your Christmas list? Well, get out your Wilson Phillips Cassingle, Hold On For One More Day and join our Gen X Queen, Winona Ryder in making some holiday treats. 

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Ok, like last year, Winona is not actually going to demonstrate her favorite holiday recipes. That honor goes to designer Betsey Johnson and her daughter Lulu, who are featured in a longer article with directions for holiday crafts, decorations, and party ideas. 

While it was founded right after World War II, I (am biased and) think Seventeen hit its peak in the 1980s and 90s, when it embraced it’s NYC location, and (like its spiritual cousin, MTV) wasn’t afraid to be a little weird, a little gritty, and a little funky. So get out your creepy dolls, put on your puff-paint baseball cap and  journey with me to 1990 and a loft in Tribeca…

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Let’s start with dessert apps! 

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Next up, the Johnson family’s ancestral fave: 

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And finally, are you feeling ambitious? This Yule Log-like cake serves 12, enough to serve all of your club kid friends after dancing the night away at Limelight! 

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Happy Holidays and all the best in the New Year!
We shall return in January, 2026! 

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Holly’s New Year By Dorothy Hamilton

Posted on December 16, 2025 by mondomolly

Holly Manning liked her new foster home in Oakville. But did she like it well enough to want to be adopted?

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I always love buying library discards and seeing how far they have traveled: I picked up a few of author Dorothy Hamilton’s books at a Salvation Army store near Geneva, NY over the summer that originated at the Independent Baptist Church, Towanda, PA. I was also especially excited that 1. This appeared to be a Christmas title, something I am always on the lookout for and 2. Hamilton seems to specialize in social issues, which is always fertile ground for this project. Also the shorthand descriptions of her other books… sound a little bonkers?

Other titles include Amanda Fair (shoplifting), Anita’s Choice (migrant workers), Bittersweet Days (snobbery at school) The Blue Caboose (less expensive housing) Busboys at Big Bend (Mexican-American friendship), Eric’s Discovery (vandalism), The Gift of a Home (problems of becoming rich), Ken’s Hideout (his father died) Linda’s Rain Tree (a black girl), Neva’s Patchwork Pillow (Appalachia), Rosalie at Eleven (life in Grandma’s day), Scamp and the Blizzard Boys (friendship in a winter storm), Straight Mark (drugs)…

So… that is a lot.

Holly’s New Year is ostensibly foster-care themed… although it is also a sequel, so as this book opens, Holly is in a stable home and has to make a decision about whether she wants to be adopted. Continue reading →

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Movie Madness And/Or Mania: The Best Christmas Pageant Ever (1983)

Posted on December 9, 2025 by mondomolly

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Stick with me: I have been watching a lot of Shelley Long’s movies recently. I am squarely in the demographic that remembers her both as Diane on Cheers and as an extremely bankable movie star of modestly-budgeted comedies in the 1980s and 90s. I have been pleasantly surprised how well most of her movies hold up 30+ years later, and that her persona made the jump from TV to the big screen. Beverly Hills, what a thrill.

So, when Loretta Swit died this past spring she was (of course!) remembered for her iconic, 11 season run as Maj. Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan on M*A*S*H, and less frequently for originating the role of Christine Cagney in the TV Movie-pilot for Cagney and Lacey… but hardly anything else? It’s my understanding that her contract for M*A*S*H dominated her career (and she was unable to be released from it when Cagney & Lacey was picked up as a series), but her post-M*A*S*H roles are very thin (Beer, anyone?) and she mostly did TV guest shots and regional theater. Which I feel like means we kind of missed out, as she actually showed a lot of range as Maj. Houlihan, greatly expanding the character from Sally Kellerman’s performance in the original film. And her performance in this made-for -TV film, based on a stage play that had been in turn adapted by Barbara Robinson from her own (very short) juvenile novel, she provides a reliable and trustworthy maternal presence that also puts up with zero nonsense from either her family or the various townspeople.

The movie follows the plot and dialogue of the book very closely: in the weeks leading up to Christmas, busybody supermom Mrs. Armstong has been waylaid by an accident involving her extra-long telephone cord and is laid up in the hospital; the other moms scheme to dump directing the annual Christmas Pageant onto Grace Bradley, who doesn’t know what she is in for. Continue reading →

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The Nancy Drew Files: Case 77 Danger On Parade By Carolyn Keene

Posted on November 24, 2025 by mondomolly

The Thanksgiving feast of felonies leaves a sour taste in Nancy’s mouth…

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Constant Readers, you know I love a holiday themed book, and I am constantly on the search for them, so I was excited to turn up a Thanksgiving title that involved neither stowing away on the Mayflower nor peril at the bird sanctuary.

I has been a point of pride/shame that I have never read an actual Nancy Drew mystery, although over the past decade-plus, we have covered her cookbook, the mostly Nancy-less spinoff romance series, and the quartet of movies starring Bonita Granville.

I guess strictly speaking, this still isn’t a part of the original Nancy Drew series… but I find myself conflicted in my Trixie Belden-based loyalties, because this was really a hoot!

Background: By the early 1980s, Harriet Stratemeyer Adams was in her late 80s and finally handing off the supervision of Nancy Drew ghostwriters to her protégées; after her death, her children sold the family business off to Simon & Schuster, where they began tinkering with the formula, launching The Nancy Drew Files as a companion series, featuring a more mature Nancy solving more serious crimes. And in the age of Sweet Valley High, it was hit with the YA audience, with its racy cover art, occasionally Ned-free romances and PG rated make-out scenes.

The Nancy Drew Files would run 124 volumes over 11 years, plus 36 additional cross-over titles with The Hardy Boys.

The Plot: Nancy and Bess are in New York City for Thanksgiving break, visiting Nancy’s maiden aunt Eloise who lives in Greenwich Village. Aunt Eloise has introduced the girls to her friend (“friend”? ) Jill Johnston, who just got promoted to the head of public relations at Macy’s… sorry MITCHELL’s department store, and their world-famous Thanksgiving Day Parade. Continue reading →

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Checking In With The Imaginary Summer Book Club: Michelle Remembers By Michelle Smith and Lawrence Pazder, MD

Posted on October 31, 2025 by mondomolly

(Click here for information on the 2025 edition of Molly’s Imaginary Summer Book Club Featuring Classics of Women’s Literature. This week, the final selection, Michelle Remembers By Michelle Smith & Lawrence Pazder.)

But first! Click here to read how your comments can help raise money for my childhood Public Library, which continues to provide summer reading programs to Brockport, NY and the surrounding region.  Make your comment by November 30, 2025 to be counted! 

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And finally, we close out the 2025 Imaginary Summer Book Club with a spooky Halloween tale of Satanic rituals in idyllic British Columbia… Oh, Constant Readers, who am I kidding? This one is a mess.

Published in 1980, this record of psychotherapy sessions between a Victoria, BC woman and her psychiatrist became a marketing juggernaut and so-called “Patient Zero” in the Satanic Panics that would sweep North America over the next decade.

I’ve been thinking of Ira Levin’s late-life regrets about kicking off a cycle of occult-themed popular literature with the publication of Rosemary’s Baby in 1967. And I think it important to place Michelle Remembers in the context of that work (followed by the very successful film in 1968) as well as Imaginary Summer Book Club greatest hits including Sybil (1973, TV miniseries 1976… and more on that later) and The Amityville Horror (1977, movie 1979), as well as The Exorcist (1971, movie 1973) and The Omen (1976). We were a continent steeped Nixon-Ford-Carter malaise and millennialism, preoccupied with Catholic mythology and Women’s Lib and apparently ready to make anyone famous. I am saying that I kind of see Levin’s point.

But also… this is a really weird flashpoint. Michelle Remembers makes Sybil and Amityville look like wonders of cohesive narrative construction. It is hard to believe that anyone, including a young and hungry Geraldo Rivera (more on him later) would actually slog their way through it to promote an anything-panic. Continue reading →

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On That Dark Night By Carol Beach York

Posted on October 17, 2025 by mondomolly

Now she is Julie Whitcomb. But who was she before?

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This is the third title we’ve looked at from Scholastic house writer Carol Beach York; I was not much impressed with the Norma Fox Mazer-ish Nothing Ever Happens Here in 2013 but was pleasantly surprised by the gothic-mystery-disguised-as-teen-romance The Secret last year. That genre is clearly York’s strength, as this very short (only 100 pages!) and spooky reincarnation-themed mystery is also nicely done.

The Plot: York wastes no time plunging us right into the mystery, as rising Sophomore Allison has finished up the last day of summer school and stops by her BFF Julie’s house, hoping for a cold drink on a hot day:

It was late August, one of those hot, drowsy days when you think time has stopped. Shadows seem to stand on the grass without moving, and although the calendar says it’s still summer, you know in your heart that summer is over.

Julie is slow to answer the door, and Allison hears someone inside playing “Three Blind Mice” over and over again on the piano… but always skipping the last few notes on the verse.

When Julie is finally roused, and Allison mentions it, she claims to have no idea what she is talking about. Allison can tell something is wrong, and soon Julie tearfully confesses that she feels like she is going crazy: she feels she can remember hearing the song played that way, long ago… not as a child… but in another lifetime. Allison buys into this theory immediately and is fascinated with Julie’s theory. Continue reading →

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Checking In With The Imaginary Summer Book Club: Dreams That Money Can Buy: The Tragic Life of Libby Holman By Jon Bradshaw

Posted on October 11, 2025 by mondomolly

(Click here for information on the 2025 edition of Molly’s Imaginary Summer Book Club Featuring Classics of Women’s Literature. This week, the third selection, Dreams That Money Can Buy By Jon Bradshaw.)

But first! Click here to read how your comments can help raise money for my childhood Public Library, which continues to provide summer reading programs to Brockport, NY and the surrounding region.  

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Why is the September selection of the Imaginary Summer Book Club arriving two weeks into October? Because, Constant Readers, this book was a freaking tome. Although it is less than 400 pages in hardcover, it is so dense with (sometimes-questionable) content that I had to keep pausing to keep my wits about me.

That being said, to date this is the book I most wish I had read when I was an Actual Teen because all of my favorite people appear in it! Dorothy Parker! Cole Porter! Tallulah Bankhead!

So. Who was Libby Holman, anyway? Professionally, she is most often described as a Torch Singer, a genre that gained popularity in Broadway shows (then the source for most popular music) in the 1920s. But really, if she is remembered at all today, it is for the mysterious circumstances of the death of her first husband, RJ Reynolds heir Zarchary Smith Reynolds in 1932 (she lived under a cloud of suspicion for the rest of her life); and then the 1950s, as the much-older “girlfriend” of actor Montgomery Clift.

This was the third of three biographies of Holman published within five years, and seems to be regarded as the most comprehensive, if not exactly well-reviewed: the New York Times contemporary review complains that it “tends to read like a very long treatment for a very tacky and predictable TV mini-series”. Bradshaw never quite seems to take his subject seriously, depicting Holman as both cursed and nutty, a pretentious wannabe bohemian, while not giving weight to what also sound like very serious intellectual and social-justice pursuits. Continue reading →

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Marshmallow Masquerade By Cynthia Blair

Posted on September 7, 2025 by mondomolly

Homecoming is here again- and that means DANCE which translates into DATES AND BOYS…

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Back to school! Time to start the year off with the Pratt twins and another snack-themed scheme.

Background: I was pretty harsh on Susan and Christine Pratt back in 2013, when we looked at The Banana Split Affair in this space, when studious introvert Susan (AKA Snooze) and boy-crazy extrovert Christine swapped places to find out how they other half lived during their junior year in high school.

I should have guessed that I couldn’t keep away from a series with two gimmicks (twin-swapping and titles named after foods), and maybe I am mellowing (MARSH-mellowing?) [STOP! -Ed.] in my old age, because this time around the brainlessness tips over into extreme silliness, and oh yeah, also now it involves cross-dressing. There are also some well-intentioned lessons, earnestly delivered.

The Plot: I also didn’t realize until this point that the 13 volumes follow a strict chronology, following the twins from their junior year of high school and into college; this is #5 in the series, and they have returned to Whittington High for their senior year. Continue reading →

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Checking In With The Imaginary Summer Book Club: Miss Rona By Rona Barrett

Posted on August 26, 2025 by mondomolly

(Click here for information on the 2025 edition of Molly’s Imaginary Summer Book Club Featuring Classics of Women’s Literature. This week, the second selection, Miss Rona By Rona Barrett.)

But first! Click here to read how your comments can help raise money for my childhood Public Library, which continues to provide summer reading programs to Brockport, NY and the surrounding region.  

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I feel about Rona Barrett similarly to how I feel about Howard Cosell: someone who was a huge part of the popular culture right on the cusp of my being too young to really remember or understand the impact. And after reading Barrett’s memoir, I confess that I am even more baffled about how or why she was so powerful and famous. It is a book that purports to tell-all but reveals nothing.

I was also struck by a sense of déjà vu while reading the early chapters, as a teenage ugly duckling from the outer boroughs of New York City must overcome adversity, escape her overbearing Jewish family who just wants her to settle down with a nice young man, rise and fall and rise again in a glittery Manhattan, maybe decamp for Hollywood, and become a legend in her own time. She’s Florrie Fisher, and Joan Rivers, and Barbra Streisand and Jean Nidetch. In fiction, she’s Sheila Levine. On the west coast she’s Jeraldine Saunders.

She’s referenced as being one of the most -powerful and -hated women in Hollywood, but those reasons seem to be lost to the mists of time. Multiple sources note that no one recalls exactly what she said about Ryan O’Neal that resulted in him sending her a live tarantula. Frank Sinatra and Johnny Carson regularly took verbal potshots at her in public… was she really that much of a gossip powerbroker (or were they just very insecure men)? At the height of her fame, she had three magazines bearing her name on the newsstands, and hosted multiple TV shows as well as pre-taped info-tainment segments for local news broadcasts. Does anybody remember what any of these were about?

And in 1974 she published her autobiography, which was a bestseller, and might be the best-remembered thing about her in 2025, because this is how she opens: Continue reading →

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Movie Madness And/Or Mania: Tiger Eyes (2012)

Posted on August 14, 2025 by mondomolly

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A comment I often hear about favorite YA novels of the 60s, 70s and 80s is “why haven’t they/I wish they would” make it into a movie. Theatrical film adaptations of the work of “classic” YA writers are few and far between, and are more often relegated to After School Specials, Made-for-TV Movies, and the occasional TV (or streaming) series.

Recent releases all tend to be artistic and/or financial failures, even when backed by a marketing budget and excessive quantities of tie-in merchandise (A Winkle in Time, Ender’s Game…) If it’s not franchiseable à la Twilight or The Hunger Games (…or the rapidly diminishing returns that are Divergent and The Maze Runner…) it seems likely that the film will sink without a trace (Did Catherine, Called Birdy play at a Theater Near You?)

(The big exception I can think of is I Know What You Did Last Summer, which made massive amounts of money and spawned a sequel and a reboot… but it is far removed from the source material and author Lois Duncan also hated it so I am not sure if we can qualify that as an artistic success.)

I think a big part of it has to do with the era we’re talking about, which is a point where teen-targeted literature started to move away from sensationalized topics and into moody and meditative interior lives, which makes a faithful adaptation a hard sell. The other problem is more literal: how to best adapt (comparatively) low-tech 1975 to 2025 and still have it make sense? The long-anticipated release of Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret in 2023 was certainly an artistic triumph and well-crafted adaption (the lack of belted sanitary napkins notwithstanding); I loved it, but I also was asking myself “Who is this for? Middle schoolers? Their moms? Or, judging by the empty seats in the theater, the childless older siblings of those moms.” Continue reading →

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