1950, the evolution of the American Teenager
To Tell Your Love is probably the oldest book I'm going to review this year, published in 1950 when teenagers were barely a cultural phenomenon. It predates rock and roll by five years; even my own mother was too young to read this, eight years old when it was first published. The book is several tales woven into one, each featuring one of the children in the Armacost family:
- Theo, 21, is a pragmatic nurse who stumbled into a relationship while caring for the cantankerous grandfather of a reserved young man;
- Anne, 16, is mourning the end of a relationship with a boy who was frankly not that into her; and
- Johnny, 14, the youngest sibling, is coming to terms with the awkwardness of growing up and perhaps loving himself.
There are additional storylines as well. Nora, Anne's best friend, who quit school to marry far too young, struggles with the thought "Is this it?" as her schoolgirl romance gives way to the reality of too many bills, too many diapers, and not enough money. There's also Johnny's best friend and his family, whose gruff exterior belies the grace exhibited with casual generosity, overstuffed picnic baskets, and a championship trophy for July the cat.
Even the bit players are fully fleshed characters in this small New York town.
Stolz attended Columbia University at age 16, married at 18, and began writing in 1949 when an illness kept her homebound. She received the 1953 Child Study Association of America's Children's Book Award for In a Mirror, the Newbery Honors in 1962 for Belling the Tiger, and 1966 for The Noonday Friends, and her entire body of work was awarded the George G. Stone Recognition of Merit in 1982. She passed in 2006.
