Thursday, August 14, 2008

Violet on the Runway by Melissa Walker (Scholastic Edition) - ESSENTIAL


Walker, Melissa Violet on the Runway, 228 p. Special Scholastic Edition (originally released by Penguin), 2008.

First - please be aware that you SHOULD NOT confuse the Penguin original edition with the Special Scholastic Edition of this book.

Violet Greenfield is super tall, super skinny and super not-fitting-in at her high school. Oh, she has her friends, but not much more than a couple. At her movie theater job, one night, she catches the eye of a high fashion model agent, who hands Violet her card and starts her on the road to supermodel-dom. Violet makes a huge splash on her very first trip down the runway and as soon as possible she heads off for a life in the big city to see if she can really make it. Violet is dazzled by the bright lights, hurt by her callous model roommates and drawn into the party life of seeing and being-seen. Then an ugly confrontation with last best friend wakes Violet up to the fact that she had better make some hard choices, or the model lifestyle may very well eat her up.

Scholastic has managed to scrub away every swear word, drug and alcohol reference in the book. Though the book lost its "edginess", it didn't lose its main message about the model lifestyle. The cover is ultra pink, a bit sparkly and definitely attention-catching. If you choose this particular edition for your school library, you can do so without wincing and know that it will make the rounds. I don't think you can get in anywhere except at the Scholastic book fairs, so you'd better find your closest warehouse and pick up a couple today!

MS - ESSENTIAL. Cindy, Library-Teacher.

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