The next book to make it on to The Top Shelf is
Freaky Friday by Mary Rodgers
‘You are not going to believe me, nobody in their right
minds could possibly believe me, but it’s true, really it is!’
Freaky Friday is the story of Annabel Andrews, a girl who
wakes up one morning to discover she has been transformed into her mother. So begins a day of getting to do whatever the
hell she wants with nobody to tell her what to do, and quickly learning how
tough it is to be an adult and a mother.
She has to contend with the racist cleaning lady, a demanding toddler,
baffling housework, family politics, the judgemental attitudes of strangers,
mysterious appointments in the diary and her teenage crush falling for her mother.
This is one of those books that seems to have always been
part of The Bookshelf. I’ve read it
quite a lot, as you may be able to tell from the state of my copy. I certainly remember that the narrator
Annabel was much older, practically an adult, than me when I read this
as a child. Annabel is thirteen.
The Keen Detective skills have led me to notice I have
written my name in the front along with my class ‘5J’. So presumably I was ten when I got this
book. Hmm. Or possibly ten when I took this book to
school.
Anyway, it is a book I always found easy to read (although
it was the first American novel I read, so I was occasionally baffled as to
what she was talking about) and always welcome to dip into when I needed
something to do or something comforting to escape into. When I read it again as an adult, I was
delighted to discover it really is very good.
In fact, I think I appreciate it more now.
‘I fished the bowl of macaroni out of the wastebasket, and
turned on the living-room television set.
I was hoping to find a good cartoon, but it was after ten and I couldn’t
even find a bad cartoon. I suppose they
figure all the kids are in school and grown-ups like to watch other kinds of
shows. Not very thoughtful of them. What about a poor little sick kid who has to
stay home, or a poor little kid who’s changed into her mother for the day. Not even one ‘Road Runner’? No sir.
One ladies’ panel show, one sewing show, ‘Romper Room’, one show that
looked good but it was all in Spanish, and a show called ‘Swing and Sway with
Jean Dupray, Physical Fitness the Real
Fun Way’.
That seemed like the best of the bunch, but just as I was beginning to
get the hang of the swinging and swaying (which was easier for old Jean than
for me because she was wearing a tank suit over tights and I was wearing Ma’s
long silk thing), there was the most staggeringly horrible noise in the
kitchen. Right away, I knew it had to be
the washing machine, and it took all the guts I had to go in there and
look. Not that there was much to see –
just bubbles – but the clatter and bang was enough to make you deaf for
life. I was just about to turn it off
before it went into the spin cycle – because it was mad as a hornet now, but
when it started spinning it would probably break loose and chase me around the
room – when the phone rang.
‘Hell,’ I said. Too
late. The spin cycle had begun. Last year, our class took a trip to an old
car graveyard – a big crane throws dead cars into a pile and then a compressor
thing mashes them all together into one large, tutti-frutti mess. All I can tell you is that compared to the
racket in the kitchen, a trip to an old car graveyard is like a trip to Grant’s
Tomb (where we also went last year).’
Annabel is a slobby underachiever but actually very smart,
which allows her narration to gallop along at a childishly frenetic pace while
making deeper, interesting observations.
It’s certainly an example of The Favourite First Person Narrators.
The rather obvious body-swap premise actually opens up a fascinating
existential crisis, as Annabel has to face the fact that she may be trapped as
her mother forever, while dealing with her chauvinistic husband (father), being
nice to a son (brother) she can’t stand, who adores his big sister (her) and
can’t understand why she hates him, talking to a bunch of teachers about her
underachieving daughter (her), the boy upstairs falling in love with her (the
mother) but hating her (the daughter) and the fact that whoever is in her body
has gone AWOL.
It’s wonderful that Rodgers has managed to write a story in
which a stroppy teenager learns things from a new perspective and have
the ugly girl turns beautiful ending without ever getting clichéd. It even has several false endings and
parodies the essay style kids are forced to write in, which is delightfully
smart.
What else can I say about it? It’s intelligent, engaging, witty,
entertaining and exciting and as far as I can tell, it’s a great read whatever
age you are.
