What the Hell is a Sunrise Party anyway?
January 29, 2011 10:25 AM Subscribe
This is my first askme and naturally it's about a book I read as a kid. I must have read it in the late 70's so the book could be older.
For all I know this could have been an adaptation of an After School Speical- it sure reads like one.
The protagonist is an average middle-school student. Not a cool kid, not a nerd, just a regular kid. However, quite by accident he becomes part of the popular crowd. The popular boys all wear- LEATHER jackets. The protagonist gets his mom to buy him one (she's nervous it means he's becoming a hoodlum but gives in anyway) and he wears his knew coat with pride. His older friends are dismayed since this means he's become one of them- a popular kid.
All is not well in popular middle-school kid land. The town has announced that it is building a teen center but the teen center will only be for High School students; tough luck Middle Schoolers.
This makes the leader of the popular kids very upset. It turns out he really is potential hoodlum- He devises a plot to get a bunch of kids together to vandalize the new Teen Center- that will teach them a lesson.
But how to sneak away and find time to trash the building? One of the popular girls suggests they have a "Sunrise Party", which is a party that starts early in the morning and is specifically designed to get a group of people together to admire the sun. (Has anyone ever had one of these? Not an all-night party that ended at sunrise, but one that starts at 4:00 am.- but I digress). This will get all the middle-school kids out of the house with plenty of time to vandalize the Teen Center.
Now for the tough part- I don't remember what happens next. All I remember the protagonist agonizing over what to do. Some time later he ends up hanging out with his old friends and leaves his leather jacket at home. I think he learned a valuable lesson.
I have searched for this book for years. I've used leather jacket, and sunrise party as keywords in all my searches and haven't had any success. Does anyone else besides me remember this story? Thanks.
For all I know this could have been an adaptation of an After School Speical- it sure reads like one.
The protagonist is an average middle-school student. Not a cool kid, not a nerd, just a regular kid. However, quite by accident he becomes part of the popular crowd. The popular boys all wear- LEATHER jackets. The protagonist gets his mom to buy him one (she's nervous it means he's becoming a hoodlum but gives in anyway) and he wears his knew coat with pride. His older friends are dismayed since this means he's become one of them- a popular kid.
All is not well in popular middle-school kid land. The town has announced that it is building a teen center but the teen center will only be for High School students; tough luck Middle Schoolers.
This makes the leader of the popular kids very upset. It turns out he really is potential hoodlum- He devises a plot to get a bunch of kids together to vandalize the new Teen Center- that will teach them a lesson.
But how to sneak away and find time to trash the building? One of the popular girls suggests they have a "Sunrise Party", which is a party that starts early in the morning and is specifically designed to get a group of people together to admire the sun. (Has anyone ever had one of these? Not an all-night party that ended at sunrise, but one that starts at 4:00 am.- but I digress). This will get all the middle-school kids out of the house with plenty of time to vandalize the Teen Center.
Now for the tough part- I don't remember what happens next. All I remember the protagonist agonizing over what to do. Some time later he ends up hanging out with his old friends and leaves his leather jacket at home. I think he learned a valuable lesson.
I have searched for this book for years. I've used leather jacket, and sunrise party as keywords in all my searches and haven't had any success. Does anyone else besides me remember this story? Thanks.
I searched on WorldCat and got nowhere, but you might want to check out this set of search results. It's all the books from 1960-80 published in English for a juvenile audience with "leather" as a keyword. There are only 21, and the vast majority are books that I'm confident aren't the one you want. Really, the most promising title is "Leather Jacket Boys" but I can't find a synopsis of that anywhere.
posted by donnagirl at 2:10 PM on January 30, 2011
posted by donnagirl at 2:10 PM on January 30, 2011
Response by poster: I found this book!
Thank you ask Metafilter for this link, I never knew about Google Books search.
It took 30+ years of searching and now I know.
posted by JohntheContrarian at 9:37 AM on March 6, 2011
Thank you ask Metafilter for this link, I never knew about Google Books search.
It took 30+ years of searching and now I know.
posted by JohntheContrarian at 9:37 AM on March 6, 2011
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by Leah at 9:59 PM on January 29, 2011