eBookDigital Original (Digital Original)
Related collections and offers
Overview
The scariest thing Laurie has ever seen is a half-empty house, which she discovered the day her dad moved away. The divorce was a long time coming, but that didn’t make it hurt any less. To stay in touch with her father, Laurie’s mom forces her to write him a letter each week, keeping him updated on everything from quizzes and tests to parties and boys. At first, the letters are a chore, a painful reminder that Dad isn’t around anymore, but with every stamp she licks, Laurie finds herself growing up just a little bit more.
This remarkable novel, told entirely through Laurie’s letters to her father, is a powerful story of divorce and renewal that proves it’s not impossible to love someone from afar.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781497681927 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Open Road Media |
| Publication date: | 03/03/2015 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 122 |
| Sales rank: | 69,656 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
| Age Range: | 9 - 12 Years |
About the Author
Susan Beth Pfeffer wrote her first novel, Just Morgan, during her last semester at New York University. Since then, she has written over seventy novels for children and young adults, including Kid Power, Fantasy Summer, Starring Peter and Leigh, and The Friendship Pact, as well as the series Sebastian Sisters and Make Me a Star. Pfeffer’s books have won ten statewide young reader awards and the Buxtehude Bulle Award.
Read an Excerpt
Dear Dad, Love Laurie
By Susan Beth Pfeffer
OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA
Copyright © 1989 Susan Beth PfefferAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4976-8192-7
CHAPTER 1
June 24
Dear Dad,
Mom says I have to write to you at least once a week, now that you've moved so far away.
I don't think that's fair.
Love, Laurie
June 29
Dear Dad,
Mom says that I have to write to you before I go to summer camp. I don't know what she expects me to write. School ended. Being in fifth grade was okay. I'm glad I'm going to be going to middle school next year. I guess summer camp will be okay. I had a good time there last year, even if you and Mom had just split up. In summer camp, maybe they won't make me write to you.
Love, Laurie
July 6
Dear Dad,
It isn't fair. I was just getting ready to write to you when the counselor said we all had to write to our mothers. I said I was writing to my father instead, and the counselor (her name is Moira and she has three big pimples, one on each cheek and one in the middle of her chin) said she didn't care, I had to write to my mother too. I said it was my mother who made me write to my father, and Moira said she didn't care if the Queen of England made me write to my father; as long as I was sleeping in the Robin cabin, and she was the counselor, I was going to write to my mother.
So I had to stop the letter I was writing to you, and write a postcard to Mom instead.
I asked Mom before I left camp whether I had to write to you all summer long and she said yes, absolutely, the way she does. But I bet she didn't realize I was going to have to write to her too.
Darin Greenburg, (she's in the bunk next to mine and the reason her name is Darin is because her parents made it up. I think it's pretty) has parents who are still married, and she only has to write one postcard and they both get it. She says she likes writing letters. She said she'd write my letters for me if I'd pay her, but Mom didn't give me enough money.
Love, Laurie
July 15
Dear Dad,
This weekend was parents' weekend, and Mom came up to visit. Lots of other kids got homesick when they saw their parents, but I didn't cry once.
Both of Darin Greenburg's parents came, but lots of the other kids only had one parent. Some kids had a mother and a stepfather, and a few had a mother and a stepfather and a stepmother and a father.
Darin told me she was jealous of the kids who had lots of extra parents. She said it's real hard when you're stuck with a mother and a father and they're still married. They make her do all her homework on time, and she doesn't get any extra presents or go interesting places during vacation (except her parents took her and her little brother to Disney World last year).
I liked it when you and Mom were still married, but I guess you did make me do my homework.
Love, Laurie
July 23
Dear Dad,
Thank you for my package!!! I loved everything in it!!!! How did you know I wanted a poster of Ross Perlman? He's my absolute favorite. Moira said I could hang it up by my bunk just as long as I didn't use Scotch tape. But she had masking tape, so I used that instead. Everyone in my cabin loves Ross Perlman and they all think it's neat my father sent me the poster.
Darin Greenburg says the only thing she ever gets from her father is books. It's a good thing too. I already finished all the books I brought, so I've been swapping with her. Sometimes we read instead of going to archery. I hate archery.
I also loved all the fudge you sent, and I shared it with everyone just the way you told me to (you could practically see new pimples pop out on Moira), and the magazines (everyone read Teen Dreamboat at least twice), and I especially loved the map of Missouri.
"Why did your father send you a map of Missouri?" Darin asked.
"Because that's where he lives now, so I can see what the state looks like," I said right back.
Moira says she never met anybody who lived in Missouri, but she bets it's real boring there. I hope her teeth fall out from eating too much fudge.
Love, Laurie
July 31
Dear Dad,
We had races in swimming today and I came in third twice and second once. And in archery, I hit a bull's-eye only it was in someone else's target.
Darin Greenburg says she's had enough of camp already and can't wait to go home, but I kind of like it. We're going to camp out this weekend, and have a bonfire and tell ghost stories and roast marshmallows. Moira says she knows a ghost story so scary none of us'll sleep that night, but I think she's making that up.
Jamie Reilly (she's in my cabin too) has been going to camp for years now and she says it always rains when you're going to have a camp-out. She says she was camping out once and it rained so hard the rain put the fire out. She says nothing tastes worse than wet marshmallows.
Does it rain a lot in Missouri?
Love, Laurie
August 4
Dear Dad,
The camp-out was great. It didn't rain at all (well, just a little bit and that was after we were in our tents). Moira really did know a scary ghost story. It was all about this dead person who kept coming back to her old school to get revenge on her old teachers. Even Darin liked it.
We sang songs too and played dumb games like Grandmother's Trunk and we each got to say what was the scariest thing we'd ever seen. Darin said it was her baby brother when they brought him home from the hospital. She says he's less weird-looking now. Jamie whispered to me that Moira's pimples were the scariest thing she'd ever seen, but when her turn came, she just said her mother when she was mad.
The scariest thing I ever saw was our apartment after you moved out, but I didn't want to say that, so I said it was Great-uncle Herbie the time he got all red at the wedding and had a heart attack and everybody thought he was going to die. That took third prize. Jennifer Hughes came in second with her father's third wife. Lisa Frolich won, but I'm not sure it's fair. The scariest thing she ever saw was a big truck that hit the car she and her mother were in. Her mother was in the hospital for months. The reason I don't think it's fair is because she was only a year and a half old then and I bet she doesn't really remember what the truck looked like.
I remember Great-uncle Herbie, though. Boy, was he red!
Love, Laurie
August 10
Dear Dad,
Mom was here again this weekend for the second parents' weekend. She said she never gets any letters from me.
I said that's because you make me write letters to Dad, so all I write to you are the postcards Moira makes us all write.
Mom said that made sense to her.
Sometimes I really love her.
Love, Laurie
August 18
Dear Dad,
Camp ends on Saturday. I'm really sad. I've been having a good time. I even like Moira. And Darin and Jamie and I have gotten to be such good friends that I can't believe I'm not going to see them again.
Darin said I could visit her over Thanksgiving. She says her mother makes a turkey and they have lots of people over, but I said I'd be spending Thanksgiving with you in Missouri. Jamie spends Thanksgiving with her father and stepmother. She says she misses having Thanksgiving with her mother, but she has Christmas with her and New Year's with her dad. Then she has her birthday with her mother and Easter with her father. Darin says she's stuck with both parents all the time, but sometimes I think she says stuff like that because she knows we're jealous of her. Jamie hates her stepmother and she has two stepbrothers and she says they're really mean.
Our cabin played the Bluebird cabin in softball yesterday and we won 11–10. The Bluebirds thought they should have won but the umpire called two of their runners out when they tried to score so we won instead. I was up seven times and I got three hits and a walk and I struck out twice and grounded out once. One of my hits was a triple.
Lisa Frolich got hit by a pitch and she's still black-and-blue. She says if she isn't back to normal by the time school starts, she's going to sue the camp for millions of dollars. Her mother sued the truck-driver who hit her for millions of dollars and that's why they're rich now, but she says her mother's back hurts all the time and it would be nicer not to be rich and not to be in pain. She says her mother really hurts when it rains.
Darin says her grandmother can tell when it's going to rain because her rheumatism acts up.
Lots of times we talk after lights are out. We're supposed to whisper so we don't bother anybody else. But sometimes Moira gets interested in what we're talking about and then we all talk when we're not supposed to.
Oh yeah. Darin and Jamie both say that I write longer letters than anybody they've ever met and you must be really nice sending me that poster and everything and they wish they could meet you sometime. Only I guess they won't, if you live in Missouri.
You'd like them too, so maybe you should move closer to us.
Love, Laurie
August 25
Dear Dad,
I got home from camp perfectly safe and Mom let me call Darin to make sure she got home too. She did. Then Mom took me out for a special welcome-home supper. I got a prime rib.
Mom said I shouldn't eat too much red meat, but I told her I hadn't been, that at camp all we ever ate were hot dogs and everybody at camp said they were made out of mouse intestines.
Mom turned kind of green then and she ended up changing her order and getting some kind of pasta with vegetables. She even threatened to make both of us vegetarians, but I think she's kidding.
Anyway, since all she'd had for supper was pasta and vegetables, Mom insisted we both have big goppy desserts. I got a hot fudge sundae, and Mom got a brownie with ice cream and whipped cream. She said we'd have to get back to normal tomorrow, but that was yesterday and we had pancakes for breakfast this morning.
She says it's because she missed me when I was at camp.
I missed her too, but now that I'm back home I don't miss her anymore, but I still miss you. And I miss Darin and Jamie. I even miss Lisa Frolich and I didn't like her very much.
Love, Laurie
August 28
Dear Dad,
Kris Chandler came to visit me yesterday. I hadn't seen her since June.
She spent the summer mostly visiting her grandparents. They have a farm in Indiana and she likes spending the summer there. They have cows and chickens and pigs and ducks. She says chickens are terrible, but she likes the ducks.
I told her all about camp and Darin and Jamie and I showed her my Ross Perlman poster (which I hung up by the side of my bed so he's the first thing I see when I wake up in the morning. Mom said I could use Scotch tape). She loved the poster. I told her you sent it to me and she said you were always the nicest father she knew except hers and he never even heard of Ross Perlman. I think you're nicer than Mr. Chandler. He shouted at me once when I was visiting Kris because I talked during a third-down-and-two play, but everybody in the stands was screaming, so I don't see what difference it makes that I talked. I wasn't even there, just watching the game on TV. I didn't tell Kris you were nicer though because maybe you shouted at her once and I just don't remember.
It's been really hot here, much hotter than it was at camp. Mom sweats all the time. The living room air conditioner is just kind of working. Mom says if it would really break she could complain to the landlord about it, but as long as it makes lots of noise and a little bit of cold air, she doesn't think the landlord would care. So we don't spend much time in the living room.
I asked her if it was hot in Missouri and she said it's always hot in Missouri. Is that true?
Love, Laurie
September 3
Dear Dad,
School starts next week, but Mom went in today to look at her classroom. She says she always cries at the start of each new school year, and then she cries when the school year ends. She says she cries lots of times during the school year too, but she'd still rather be a teacher than anything else.
She says you must be real busy, now that you're an assistant superintendent of schools and that's why you haven't written back to me to tell me if it's hot in Missouri. She says you'll write as soon as you have the chance, but meanwhile I have to keep writing to you.
I almost don't mind writing letters to you, but I like it when you write back. And just because I'm home doesn't mean you can't keep sending me packages. Mom says no fudge, but posters and books and other junk is fine with her. She was sorry I didn't bring back my copy of Teen Dreamboat. She says it's real useful knowing who the teen dreamboats are nowadays. I don't know why she has to know that stuff, but she says sometimes her students mention someone, and it helps if she knows who the person is. I think it's real exciting going to a brand-new school. I was getting pretty tired of elementary school. Now I'll be in middle school for three years, and then I'll be in the high school.
Kris says it kind of scares her starting a new school, but we figure as long as we have each other and Shannon and Maria and even Jimmy, we should be okay. Jimmy used to be almost my best friend after Kris, but last year he started acting weird, and Mom says that kind of stuff only gets worse in sixth grade. She says first they act weird and then they start shaving and then the next thing you know they're taking you to the senior prom.
I don't think I want to go to the senior prom with Jimmy but I guess I have seven years to make up my mind. Kris says she wants to go to the senior prom with Ross Perlman, but I bet he doesn't ask her.
Love, Laurie
September 10
Dear Dad,
Guess what! I am now a genuine middle school student. I started Dale Baker Middle School yesterday, and today was the first full day of school.
It rained so hard this morning Mom thought maybe there was a hurricane and we wouldn't have school at all, but the bus came just like it was supposed to, only we all got wet waiting for it.
Mom says I should tell you what classes I'm taking and who my teachers are. I have Mr. Rodriguez for reading (I think he's cute, but Kris doesn't like his mustache), and Ms. Oslow for math, and Mr. Brown for social studies, and Mrs. Larue for science. In social studies we're going to study all the different states, and we each have to write a report on one, so I asked if I could do Missouri. Mr. Brown said almost nobody ever volunteered to do Missouri so I explained you were living there now. So then Amy Yagoda said she wanted to do Missouri too, but it turned out she meant Mississippi. Her parents got arrested there once, and they talk about it a lot.
I like Mr. Brown and Mrs. Larue seems okay, but I don't think I'm going to like Ms. Oslow. She said she was sure we'd all forgotten all our arithmetic over the summer and we were going to spend this week doing nothing but the times tables which is baby stuff. I remember that seven times eight is fifty-six (or is it fifty-four?). Fifty-six. See. I remembered.
Mr. Rodriguez said if our class read enough books then Burger Bliss would treat us all to hamburgers, but it wouldn't be fair if two kids read twenty books each, and everybody else read just one, so we'd all have to read a lot because he hated to turn down a free meal. And Mrs. Larue said we'd study the planets and the stars and gravity. We'll each get to do a planet, but I don't know which one I want yet. It would be easier if you lived on one, like Jupiter or Pluto, the way you live in Missouri.
Kris is in all my classes with me and so's Shannon and Jimmy, but Maria is in different classes and when we saw her at lunch, she cried. Shannon and Maria have always been in the same class, and Shannon's pretty upset too. It's scary being in a new school, but if you have your best friend with you, it makes it feel okay. Poor Maria is in the same class with Gracie Schultz, and they've always hated each other. Mom says sometimes you start out in sixth grade hating someone and by the time the year ends, you're best friends, but I don't think Maria and Gracie are ever going to be best friends.
Also I have gym and two days a week I have music and two days a week I have art and one day a week I have home ec (Mom says she can't wait until I learn how to cook so we can eat better), and I have French too! Our teacher is Mrs. Hulbert, but we have to call her Madame. And lunch.
There's a school band, and Mom says I can be in it if I want, but I have to be willing to practice, so I don't think I'll join. I'm pretty tired of playing the bassoon.
Love, Laurie
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Dear Dad, Love Laurie by Susan Beth Pfeffer. Copyright © 1989 Susan Beth Pfeffer. Excerpted by permission of OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.