By Dave O'Brien
Record-Courier staff writer
Fifteen-year-old Amanda Himmelfarb is not exactly the most popular girl at Stone Creek High School.
Her last name has been twisted into humiliating nicknames by cruel classmate Courtney "Fakey" Flakey. She has an untamable "frizz bomb" of hair among other self-image issues. And her mother, whom she calls "The Captain," is constantly on her case.
Amanda thinks getting a boyfriend could fix her problems. That could prove difficult, as the object of Amanda's teenage crush is Rick Hayes, who is both "the hottest guy at Stone Creek High" ... and Courtney Flakey's boyfriend.
But Rick soon offers Amanda what she calls The Deal: A date to the big dance in exchange for her virginity. So what's a girl to do?
That's just one of the questions posed in the novel "Unraveling," the first young adult novel by authors Michelle Baldini and Lynn Biederman, published by Random House's Delacorte Press.
The book had its genesis several years ago when Baldini, a grant and project coordinator for Kent State University's School of Library and Information Science and a resident of Silver Lake, met co-author Biederman in a young adult literature course at Long Island University.
Baldini, then a resident of Peekskill, N.Y., said the theme of the discussion when the two met was mother-daughter relationships, and both women had teenage daughters.
"During class we had a lot to say. I connected with her, we had a lot in common," Baldini said.
After class, they met up in the parking lot and Baldini clearly remembers the first two sentences she said to Biederman.
""I like the way you talk. Do you want to write a book with me?'" she recalled.
The two struck up a partnership, and the character of Amanda soon developed, based on experiences they had as teenagers and some of what they'd encountered as mothers of teenage daughters. Baldini said the heart of the story is a "borderline toxic" mother-daughter relationship, and "how that affects Amanda's decisions."
"She just became someone who was real to us," she said.
Even after Baldini and her family moved to Silver Lake, a Summit County village sandwiched between Cuyahoga Falls and Stow, the two kept up their phone and e-mail correspondence. And young adult literature currently is one of the toughest genres to break in to, Baldini said.
"I can't say it was easy, because it wasn't easy," she admitted. "But co-authoring is like a marriage. When one person falls apart, the other is strong. One of us would say "I don't think this is going to happen,' and the other would say "This is going to happen,' so we were supporting each other in that way."
Eventually, with lots of support from family, many late nights, breakdowns " and at least one frantic call to a publishing house mailroom " the two sent their first manuscript to David Levithan, executive editorial director at publishing house Scholastic and a young adult author in his own right.
"He graciously turned us down," Baldini said.
But Levithan also made helpful comments that led to revisions and the novel's eventual submission to Delacorte Press, a Random House division for young adult readers, which agreed to publish the book.
Because of language and mature themes, "Unraveling" is suggested for readers ages 14 and up. But that makes it more true to life, according to Baldini.
"I think girls are under more pressure than ever before," she said.
Baldini currently is at work on a second young adult novel titled "Ringmaster," about a 14-year-old girl under the control of an abusive stepfather.
The experience of writing, she said, changed her as a mother and the way she viewed her relationships with her daughters. When her editor called and called The Captain "harsh" while referencing a scene from the book, Baldini realized "some of that dialogue actually came out of my mouth."
"You want to stop your daughters from making the same mistakes you made, and in that process Amanda's mother turns into "The Captain,'" she said.
Baldini recently got a letter from one of her daughters saying how proud she was of her mother. The daughter gave her a necklace with two rings linked together, symbolizing her love.
"It made me realize how this book has affected my life. I'm not just a published author but a better mother and that's the most important thing to me in the world," she said.
"
E-mail: dobrien@recordpub.com
Phone: (330) 673-3491