Looking for a book from my adolescence
July 2, 2022 11:49 AM Subscribe
I have VERY vague memories of a book I read as a tween or young adolescent in the early 70s. It referenced the Five Points, the notorious area of NY city. There may have been time-travel from the time contemporary to the book back to the 1800s in the Five Points area of NY. A character in the book referenced a quote from the Emily Dickenson poem: I'm nobody, who are you? Are you nobody, too?" I would have read it some time between 1971 and 1978. I'm quite certain it was a YA book, aimed at teens. Anybody have any idea what the book is?
Could it be this book: I'm Nobody! Who Are You? by Mary Anderson. It was published in 1974, so the time period is right, and the review mentions "time travel in old New York". Here's a New York Times YA-book roundup that describes it thusly:
“I'm Nobody! Who Are You?” by Mary Anderson, takes place in up‐to‐date New York City and also concerns an unhappy girl--two of them really: one fat and poor, the other the rich offspring of divorced parents. In both books the need for escape from an unbearable contemporary life triggers supernatural phenomena. (The New York girls manage to get back first to the brutal slums Dickens visited on his tour, then back to New Amsterdam's apparent peace and plenty.) In each case the heroines choose reality at last, despite its boredom and terrors, finding courage to do so through, the promise of a love that had appeared to be wanting at first.posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 12:39 PM on July 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
Yes to both answers above!
I read this book several times when I was young and I LOVED it! In fact, I vividly remember the end of one chapter when they come back to the present time, and one of the characters looks down and sees blood on the cuffs of her jeans…
posted by bookmammal at 12:58 PM on July 2, 2022
I read this book several times when I was young and I LOVED it! In fact, I vividly remember the end of one chapter when they come back to the present time, and one of the characters looks down and sees blood on the cuffs of her jeans…
posted by bookmammal at 12:58 PM on July 2, 2022
Response by poster: Wow! Thanks, everybody! Library, here I come!
posted by primate moon at 5:36 PM on July 3, 2022
posted by primate moon at 5:36 PM on July 3, 2022
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From a review on Amazon.com: "Stephanie pursues Ellie to be her friend, much to Ellie's surprise, and it is slowly revealed that Ellie and Stephanie have some sort of a mental connection that allows them to read each others' thoughts and eventually time travel to past eras of New York City."
posted by What is E. T. short for? at 12:38 PM on July 2, 2022