My Sister Mike

by Amelia Elizabeth Walden

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0425026108
• ISBN13: 9780425026106
• Release Date: January 1956
• Publisher: Whittlesey House
• Weight: 0.20 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Favorite Pre-teen Book

I loved this book when I was growing up. I know the message is a bit outdated, but I remember thinking that this girl could be cute and since I actually had a little sister that was a cheerleader, I totally related to Mike. I don't know if I would share it with a little girl of today, but I would let my friends borrow it.

A great YA novel...

Seventeen-year-old Mike Patterson is used to being in her younger sister's shadow. Pat is pretty and popular, while Mike is sensible and plain. The only time she gets a chance to shine is on the basketball court, where she's a star. One day after a game, one of the most popular boys in school approaches Mike and asks her for a date. She's confused at first...did he mean to ask Pat instead? No, Jeff insists. Mike's the one he wants. After doing a little digging, Mike discovers Jeff's being tapped for a secret society -- and *she's* his "assignment"! Apparently, some idiot considered her such a wallflower that she's become a joke. Mike decides to keep the date, acting as though she has no idea why Jeff asked her out. She'll stun him with how dressed up and sophisticated she can be! With very little effort on Mike's part, it works. Jeff is stunned to find himself in the company of such an intelligent, fun girl...and the joke's on him when she calls his bluff. Nonetheless, he begs her to go on another date with him, as he's truly fallen for her. But his old girlfriend Charleen isn't willing to let go. A rich private school girl who always knows what to do, Charleen makes a plain Jane like Mike feel out of her league. And if there's anything she has, it's pride...why should she be any boy's second choice?? Jeff's not Charleen's type, though...and as realizes it, Mike slowly begins to change as well. She's no longer content to hide whenever she's not on the basketball court...and other boys begin to notice, too...

One of my favorites

While it might not hold up to today's politically correct world, I think this book has alot to offer. It was one of my favorites as a child and I enjoyed seeing how my preteen enjoyed it just as much. Society puts so much emphasis on how a person looks and the message still holds up.

One of my favorites growing up

This was always one of my favorites as a young girl. Yes, things have changed quite a bit since it's been written but,the writing is still excellent. I'd still recommend it for young girls to, at the very least, help them understand how things were when we were growing up.

Five stars for nostalgia

I recently moved the rest of my things out from my parents' house to my home in Amsterdam, and have been enjoying re-reading the books from my youth to see which ones are keepers. This one is a keeper._My Sister Mike_, written in the early sixties, is a young adult romance which features the adventures of a athletic young basketball playing girl nick-named Mike, who suffers from having a younger, attractive cheerleading sister. Mike determines to make herself more feminine when she discovers that her date with her dream boy was engineered as part of a hazing so that he could join an exclusive club. With the help of her sister, Mike learns to remake herself a bit and hold boys' attention while still being her athletic self.I'll own that the message in the book is perhaps not the best one for young girls, but it's certainly a better message than most of the books of its era. I read it when I was around ten, and haven't touched it since that time, but in re-reading it I found that it had made a powerful impression. I discovered that I could recite sentences nearly verbatim and I realized how much of this book had stayed with me over time. So the least that can be said of it was that it certainly engaged a young girl's interest. As an adult, I found it far better written than most of its genre and it was still a quick and entertaining read. It's also a decent look at a period where ideas about being a woman were about to go into rapid transition, and the tension of the early sixties was evident behind the text.