I looked this book up on Amazon.com and was surprised to find that it has an average customer review of 4.5 stars. Okay, so I guess most of the reviewers are probably twelve year old girls, but even in years of yore I did not find this book particularly memorable or awesome. But apparently this reviewer did. I really think she might be giving it too much credit:

I really liked this book and I think that it has a moral lesson.

You see, Elizabeth makes these totally beautiful, cool and funky earrings. Of course, even though she's not really cruel, Jessica criticizes the earrings and hurts Elizabeth's feelings. So Elizabeth throws them away, which was totally WRONG.

Then Jessica suddenly has an idea and uses the earrings as "her" art project because she couldn't think of anything that could be a suitable project. Everybody at school oohs and aahs, so Jessica pretends they're her IDEA. There are a lot of twists and turns.. Let me just say that it's really great and that it reminds me of "The Telltale Heart". Read the book, because you won't regret it. L8er! ^_^

The Telltale Heart! Sweet Valley compared to Poe! =D Bless that girl. Francine Pascal must be so proud. I like how that review’s last sentence sounds vaguely like a threat…I mean, essentially she’s saying that you’ll regret it if you don’t read the book.

Our reviewer’s succinct appraisal of the plot is basically correct, but let me break it down in more detail for y’all. The book’s first scene is set in the Sweet Valley Middle School cafeteria, with the Unicorns discussing what their costumes are going to be this Halloween (Halloween is a week away). Lila doesn’t know yet – maybe a hula dancer, a ballerina, or an Egyptian princess (why not all three?). Belinda Layton wants to be a lifeguard, Ellen Riteman wants to be Peter Pan and Jessica’s thinking of being a black cat. Jess jokes about wanting to dress up as the cafeteria’s mystery meat, which is the scariest thing she can think of. This is pretty awesome of her, but Janet has no sense of humour about it and tells her THE UNICORNS MUST DRESS HOTLY, THE UNICORNS HAVE A REPUTATION TO UPHOLD! Janet annoys me.

The kids start imagining where the school trip might be this year. They have school trips to exotic places like Hawaii, Paris and London? I’m jealous. (Jessica wants to go to Australia. Come and meet me, Jessica! I’ll show you how to ride a roo!) But Mandy and her outrageous thrift store outfits tell the rest of the Unicorns that there is hardly any money in the school fund and that this year there might not be a school trip.

Cue Mr. Clarks’s Big Announcement.

To paraphrase his words,

“I wanted to tell you all that I just got a very interesting phone call. It seems that the local Pumpkin Growers Association is sponsoring a contest this Halloween. They’re awarding a substantial cash prize to the school in our county that shows the most ‘pumpkin fever’. And I think Sweet Valley Middle School should try to win that prize!”

A world of lolz.

Of course, if they won, the prize money would be put in the school trip fund. Jessica suggests they have a pumpkin-themed carnival to show their ‘pumpkin spirit’ (gag me), but her idea is shot down by the rest of the kids for it being too typical. The Unicorns are especially bitchy to her about her “pathetic” (Janet) idea. I kind of felt sorry for Jess in this scene.

Some other kids have lame ideas, and then Elizabeth the Wonder Twin (of course) comes up with the winning idea. Why doesn’t the school elect a King and Queen of Halloween? The “part that would really make it different and show pumpkin fever”, is that, to cast their vote, kids have to commission a jack-o’-lantern (for two dollars) in the candidate’s likeness. One jack-o’-lantern will equal one vote. Of course! I’m sure the Pumpkin Growers Association will absolutely love this mass wastage of the vegetable they have dedicated their lives to growing! Nevertheless, everyone thinks it’s a great idea and gets behind it. (Lol, except Ellen doesn’t understand it) The soccer team offers to be the pumpkin-carving team. At first Jessica is really jealous and all “everyone likes Liz’s idea better than mine”, but then she starts thinking of herself as Queen of Halloween and begins feeling better (it’s the Jungle Prom all over again). I lost my sympathy for Jess in this book right around here:

“Jessica loved contests, especially ones she was sure she could win. And she was sure she could win this one. The boys alone would be enough to give her a landslide victory. Not only did a lot of the popular boys like her, including Aaron Dallas and Rick Hunter and Jake Hamilton, but she was pretty sure most of the nerdier boys had secret crushes on her as well. Hadn’t she caught Lloyd Benson staring at her in homeroom just last week? She could already imagine dozens of Jessica Wakefield jack-o’-lanterns decorating the school.”

Ugh. I mean, it’s probably true, but at least fake some modesty, Jessica. Lila and Janet share the same attitude as Jess, though. Lila thinks she should win because she’s visited actual royal palaces in Europe (Lol!) and Janet thinks she should win because she’s the president of the Unicorns.

Elizabeth has an inkling that Jess was a bit disappointed that her carnival idea was shot down, and sweetly tells Jess she liked the idea. Elizabeth can be really nice and thoughtful when she’s not being saccharine or nosy. But Jess is all “don’t worry about it, I liked your idea better”.

The kids start amassing hundreds of pumpkins in the gym. Um, doesn’t this idea have a few logistical problems? It’s a week before Halloween, right? Wouldn’t the pumpkins start to rot after a few days of being left outside with their guts carved out? Ugh, Sweet Valley.

By lunchtime, no one has voted for Jessica except for Elizabeth. Horrors! Lol, Liz is all nice about it, but Jessica suspects her of being condescending because she already has two votes. Man, Jess is paranoid. She lets Liz think one of the votes is from her, even though it isn’t. She thinks that there’s no way she’s going to let Liz beat her in this contest.

Janet bullies all the Unicorns into voting for her. Jessica says she will, but plans not to. Hee.

Jessica angsts over her art project (which has the theme of ‘autumn’ and is due tomorrow).

Liz reveals another Idea – she’s talked to a reporter from the Sweet Valley Tribune newspaper (why does a twelve year old have contacts like this??) and said reporter is coming to the school tomorrow with a photographer to chronicle their pumpkin pride.

Everyone starts buzzing about how great Liz is, and a line forms in front of the voting booth. Jessica has a sinking feeling that everyone is voting for Elizabeth.

At home, Jess gets out a big box of art supplies to work on her art project. But unfortunately she’s completely idea-barren (is there a word for writers block but for art? Artist’s block? Meh). She leaves the room for a drink, and when she comes back, Elizabeth has been poking around and has created a pair of jack-o’-lantern earrings out of acorns, earring backs and black marker. Jessica tells Elizabeth the earrings are completely stupid and hurts her feelings. She tells her it’d be a mistake to wear them to school. Elizabeth thinks to herself that even though she feels hurt, Jessica is the one who knows fashion, and maybe she’d just done her a huge favour. She decides to commission another pumpkin in her honour tomorrow. Elizabeth is a glutton for punishment.

From Jessica’s POV –she actually thinks the earrings are cute, but was just sick of hearing Elizabeth talk about pumpkins. She still can’t think of an art project, so she (can you guess?) hands Elizabeth’s earrings in as her own.

Her art teacher calls her earrings ‘wonderful’ and a ‘clever interpretation of the theme’. Seriously? This is a male art teacher, too. In what land are earrings relevant artistic statements? Oh yeah. Sweet Valley.

Everyone goes gaga over the earrings, and Janet tells Jessica the Unicorns should make a mass of pumpkin earrings and sell them between classes (for the class trip fund). Jessica stupidly agrees. She goes out to find acorns behind the school, and runs into Elizabeth. To explain her acorn-hunting, she lies that she’s found a baby squirrel in a tree by the woods whose mother has been hit by a car. Oh…kay. Elizabeth for some reason thinks this is the perfect topic to write an article for the Sixers about. Bad idea, Liz.

First thing on Monday, Elizabeth discovers the Unicorns selling her earrings. It then dawns on her that Jessica made up the squirrel story. Jessica sheepishly admits it. But it’s too late, the Sixers has already gone to print. Now everyone thinks that Jessica’s amazingly creative as well as a humanitarian. Her votes go through the roof, and the aforementioned reporter goes gaga over her. Finally Liz can’t stand it anymore, and suggests the reporter get a picture of Jess and the imaginary squirrel. But Jess weasels out of this by bursting into tears and confessing that, though she tried to save him, the squirrel had died. Jessica gets her tear-stained face in the paper, and people rush up promising to commission jack-o’-lanterns of her in the little squirrel’s memory. Honestly, how does she sleep at night? Her ability to squelch her conscience impresses me: “The past was the past. All she could do now was sit back and enjoy the present”.

The next day, a woman from a boutique called La Presumida calls Jess at school and wants to order two dozen pairs of the earrings for her boutique. Which she’ll need by 5pm that day. Uhh, right. A) How’d she get Jessica’s school number? B) If she knows she’s at school all day, how does she expect her to make forty-eight earrings by the end of the day? Gah!

The Unicorns are getting tired of Jessica’s bragging. They reluctantly make the earrings with her, but you can tell they want to clobber her on the head. But everyone else still loves Jessica.

Even Amy and Maria (Liz’s boring crew) are praising the crap out of Jessica. Liz can’t take it anymore, and tells them about all of Jessica’s dirty dealings. They are understandably disgusted. They think Liz should get revenge on Jessica. By the way, it’s mentioned that Amy and Ken Matthews like each other. Hee, if only they knew what the future held for them.

Oh god. Then California Girl magazine calls and they want to feature Jess and her earrings in their “Fall Fashion Faves” section. And other boutiques are clamouring to get the earrings to sell. Why don’t they just make them themselves? I really don’t think a middle school girl would get this much publicity for a pair of acorn earrings….

Liz, Amy and Maria do get some water balloons and plan to ambush Jess with them, but at the last minute Elizabeth decides that a little more complicated style of revenge is in order. So she writes this article for the Sixers called “The Telltale Jack-O’-Lantern” (I wonder why that Amazon reviewer thought this story reminded them of “The Telltale Heart”? ;)). It’s about two twin sisters, one good and one evil (how subtle). The evil one gets jealous because the good one has carved a cooler jack-o’-lantern than her, so she steals her sister’s jack-o’-lantern, buries it, and wins the contest for herself. But over the next few days she keeps hearing these odd digging sounds, and then eventually the telltale jack-o’-lantern digs itself out of her garden and kills her or something. For some reason this story spooks Jessica. That night, she hears a lot of weird scraping sounds herself. They follow her around til the next morning. That day at school, they’re about to crown the King and Queen, and Jess sees a jack-o’-lantern glowing and grinning at her in the window. ARRGH! Then she gets crowned Queen (alongside Denny Jacobson for King), but can’t enjoy it because of the scraping noises and her guilt. She confesses that she doesn’t deserve to be the Queen and tells them the whole sordid story.

But for some reason no one looks mad! Aaron says this means more than every that she deserves to be Queen, and then everyone throws pumpkin guts at her. Seriously. And it turns into an all-out pumpkin guts war (I’m sure the pumpkin growers are gonna LOVE this). Lila ends up on the front cover of the Tribune, scowling, with pumpkin goo on her face. Lol! Oh yeah, and SVMS wins the Pumpkin Growers contest. Sure couldn't see that coming.

To explain the digging noises, apparently Liz, Amy and Maria taped some digging noises and played them wherever Jess went. Uh, right. Wouldn’t Jess have noticed a big tape recorder following her around? Jess gets her piece in California Girl nixed, but they ask her instead to write an article for their section Was My Face Purple or What? That’s right, reward the sinner. Sigh. I don’t think our Jess is ever going to learn a lasting lesson.

Then the kids start talking about Thanksgiving, and the next book is set up. What a rollicking good time this book was. PUMPKIN POWER!