Fifteen

He'd be at least sixteen, old enough to have a driver's license, and he'd have a sense of humor, and he'd be tall...

Fifteen-year-old Jane Purdy dreams of having such a boyfriend but doesn't think it will ever really happen. So when Jane meets Stan Crandall, a newcomer to her town, her luck seems too good to be true. Stan is everything she wants in a boyfriend, and more. But does he like her as much? Does he have a girlfriend back in his old hometown? "It's just not going to work," Jane decides. But every time she decides that, the phone rings. It's Stan...

Original Publisher: Dell
Original Year of Publication: 1960
Page Count: 190

The September 2025 #TBRChallenge is "Friend Squad." This prompt immediately put me in mind of YA, because when are friends more important than when we are young? I decided to reach for a vintage YA novel on Mount TBR, and this really dovetailed nicely into the 2025 nostalgia re-readathon, which also starts this week.

Jane Purdy is a quiet 15-year-old girl who dreams of meeting a handsome boy and having him fall for her. She is not the prettiest or more popular girl in her class; that would be Marcy Stokes, the confident and beautiful blonde who regularly receives rides from upperclassmen in their convertibles. Jane has no such luck, though her dream boyfriend would indeed be old enough to drive and would be able to take her out in style, too.

As the novel opens, Jane is on her way to a baby-sitting job with a notoriously difficult child. The job goes about as well as can be expected, with the kid purposely letting the dog out (after being explicitly told not to), then holding Jane hostage first with an full ashtray and then a bottle of blue ink which is threatened to be poured all over the beige carpet. Jane is pleading with the kid not to dump the ink out when a male voice calls out, and then a handsome boy she's never seen before appears in the doorway. He introduces himself as the delivery boy for a local dog food company, and he helps Jane out of her jam with the child before returning to his route.

He is the most handsome boy Jane has ever clapped eyes on, and he basically saw her at her worst: covered in grass stains and cigarette ash, pleading with an eight-year-old not to turn over a bottle of ink onto the carpet. Jane is embarrassed but also intrigued enough to want to find out more about this boy if she possibly can.

She is stunned when she arrives home after the baby-sitting job and the delivery boy calls her! And even more stunned when he asks her out!! Jane is ecstatic, but knows it will be an uphill battle to be allowed out with a new boy her parents don't know. It is 1960, after all, and good girls from suburbia don't go out with unknown boys.

Jane is allowed to go out on the date, and what unfolds through the rest of the novel is a very lovely little romance. Stan Crandall is the new boy, and he is so handsome and kind to Jane that she wants him all to herself. She fears that once the school year starts and the other kids at school see him, he will be very popular and the other girls - girls like Marcy - will chase him, and perhaps even win him away from her.

We are inside Jane's head as she struggles with her own insecurities (her parents, her social standing, the teasing from her classmates at school, her loyalty to her best friend Julie) as she navigates this unknown territory. It is adorably (and painfully) awkward, as both Jane and Stan bumble around each other, but it is also incredibly sweet, and brought back to me the good feelings of being that young, desperately wanting a boyfriend, and the disbelief that someone you like so much actually likes you back.

This novel was first published in 1960 and is true to its time. Stan is very proud when he saves up his money and buys a Ford Model A, which is not necessarily fashionable, but is by necessity a convertible, and he wants Jane to be the first girl he takes for a ride. The two go to the movies and the local soda fountain, Nibley's, which doubles as the teen hangout. Jane and Julie ponder whether to wear gloves and hats on their dates; they long to receive their sweethearts' ID bracelets as tokens of going steady.

The relationship between Jane and Stan reminded me a lot of the Logan/Mary Anne relationship from the Baby-sitters Club, and I would not be one bit surprised to learn that Ann M Martin read this novel and used it as inspiration for her own great series. So many of the pop culture references in the BSC universe were set during Ann's old childhood in the 60s, so this would slot in perfectly.

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