Sophie Pitt-Turnbull Discovers America

"Sheldon has lots of fun with mutual stereotypes and prejudices, not only about nationality but also about race and class...Hilarious." — Booklist

The summer her mother announces that they won’t be taking their usual holiday in France, sixteen-year-old Sophie Pitt-Turnbull is aghast — so much so that when Mummy’s old art-school chum in New York suggests they trade daughters for the summer, Sophie feels her prayers have been answered. Unfortunately, there are a few details Mummy neglects to tell her. . . . Get ready for a comical case of culture clash as an uptight British teen finds herself deep in the heart of working-class Brooklyn — and finally dares to have an adventure worth writing home about.Dyan Sheldon is the author of many books for teenagers, including the NEW YORK TIMES bestseller CONFESSIONS OF A TEENAGE DRAMA QUEEN (which was made into a major motion picture), MY PERFECT LIFE, and PLANET JANET. American by birth — and a former resident of Brooklyn, New York, where her daughter now lives — Dyan Sheldon resides in London.I've always known exactly who I am. I am Sophie Pitt-Turnbull. I live with Mummy, Daddy, and my older brother, Xar, in a terraced house in Putney, London, England. Daddy writes books (novels and biographies) and Mummy is a housewife and painter (portraits of domestic animals). Although Daddy's family didn't begin to prosper until the Industrial Revolution, Mummy can trace her ancestors back to Henry II, so I was raised with a strong sense of tradition and history. "Never forget that you're British," Nana Bea likes to say, and I never have. I've always been happy with who I am. Not in a stuck-up, I'm-the-best-thing-that's-happened-since-the-invention-of-the-lightbulb sort of way, of course. More in a God’s-done-a-lot-worse-than-Sophie-Pitt-Turnbull sort of way. Even after Jocelyn Scolfield said all that stuff about me being a bit on the dull and passive side, I was still satisfied with myself. I reckoned that I'd improve with age (like wine or cheese), but I never actually expected to change. Not change so much that I could divide my life into two parts: the part with the old me and the part with the new me. But I never expected to discover America. . . .

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SOPHIE PITT TURNBULL by Dyan Sheldon. Copyright (c) 200f by Dyan Sheldon. Published by Candlewick Press, Inc., Cambridge, MA.