Customer Reviews

Twenty Pageants Later (Bantam Starfire Books)

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I could really feel what Scottie-Anne was going through throughout the entire book. How would you feel if your sister was little miss perfect beauty queen and you were just a regular person? You probably wouldn't feel that special. The whole book is about Scottie-Anne realizing she doesn't have to be like her sister to be special. Or anyone else. She just has to be herself. I absolutely love this book!!! If you like Caroline B. Cooney you'll like this book!

What I liked to most about this one is that Cooney doesn't make Dane, the professional Beauty Queen, out to be the Wicked Witch of the Runway. That would have been very easy to do since Dane is quite self-involved, and wishes to use her sister's first-ever beauty pageant to prove a point. Cooney paints Dane as a very human person: not angelic or sweet (though she can act it), but not evil and mean, either. In her own way, Dane's realism is as unvarnished as Scottie-Anne's. "I've had to listen to more crap than most people endure in a lifetime" she says to Scottie-Anne "No adult would dream about going up to a basketball star or an honor-roll student and saying 'Aren't you ashamed of yourself for doing that?' But people walk right up to me!"

Scottie-Anne, of course is also marvelously portrayed. While she does feel envy for Dane's looks, her struggles to find her own success and to use her own gifts is conveyed with much more humor and irony than self-pity. And her admission to herself that she *wants* to win the pageant is very poignant. For better or for worse, beauty *does* count in our society, and probably most of us gals out there, no matter how smart and talented we are, probably wish we fulfilled the narrow ideals for what female beauty is in America. Scottie Anne sums it up perfectly:

"You must have white teeth. Lots of them. Poise, out of all proportion to what you have actually accomplished on earth. Shiny, thick hair, a lovely dress, a sexy walk, and long, slim legs"

and in her words we can truly see just how narrow the standards are.

This book is truly well-done. Five stars for Cooney!

As a mother of a pre-teen pageant contestant I was amazed by the amount of truth found in this book. While browsing a local book store during free time at a pageant, my daughter stumbled upon "Twenty Pageants Later". My first impression of the book was that it would be immature and silly pre-teen reading material. Much to my delight I found just the opposite. Not only was I intrigued and amused by much of the content of the book, my daughters, and even grandma enjoyed it immensely. We enjoyed it so much that I actually read the whole book aloud in a matter of two hours. We laughed and cried and basically identified with the characters in the book. There is much truth in this book, as anyone involved in pageant life will immediately see. I'd be extremely surprised if the author did not have some type of background in pageantry. I would recommend this book to anyone, not only pageant participants, as it shows both sides of the pageant issue. It presents both sides in a comprehensive and non confrontational way. Nancy Berka MBerka@naspa.net

This was the first of Cooney's books I read. I picked it up at the library one lazy summer afternoon. I was drawn. Scottie-Anne is a very relatable character. Used to living in her sister's shadow, she had grown to despise pageants after always watching her beauty queen sister, Dane, compete and always win. Her school is hosting a beauty pageant and all of her friends want to compete. Scottie-Anne initially thinks it's stupid and she doesn't want to participate. As the story progresses, she begins to want to compete. She wants Dane to look up at her. Scottie-Anne now wants attention. She wants the spotlight. The only question is...will she win?

This book is about beauty pageants which was everything said. I didn't like the big idea of the book which was beauty counts and smarts does not mean anything. Which is not true! Scottie-Anne at first thinks beauty pageants are stupid and sees no point in them, then suddenly she is FORCED to enter one because of her best friends mom. Eventually Scotts suddenly wants to win out of no where. Scotts is asked at the end if she enjoyed the pageant and she says YES but there is no talk about her enjoying the pageant in the book! Again this book is more for people who are into modeling, pageants, and how YOU LOOK. This was not a good big idea to teach to girls at the age of ten like me therefore I found this book pointless. This book was also hard to do a book project on in school because of its big idea. The back of the book made it seem like it tought a good lesson which is that beauty doesn't matter its whats inside that counts. But the book said the exact oposite. This really let me down.

This book is about beauty pageants which was everything said. I didn't like the big idea of the book which was beauty counts and smarts does not mean anything. Which is not true! Scottie-Anne at first thinks beauty pageants are stupid and sees no point in them, then suddenly she is FORCED to enter one because of her best friends mom. Eventually Scotts suddenly wants to win out of no where. Scotts is asked at the end if she enjoyed the pageant and she says YES but there is no talk about her enjoying the pageant in the book! Again this book is more for people who are into modeling, pageants, and how YOU LOOK. This was not a good big idea to teach to girls at the age of ten like me therefore I found this book pointless. This book was also hard to do a book project on in school because of its big idea. The back of the book made it seem like it tought a good lesson which is that beauty doesn't matter its whats inside that counts. But the book said the exact oposite. This really let me down.

Twenty Pageants Later is a book about a girl named Scotti-Anne who's older sister, Dane, is a beauty queen. Dane has won alot of pageants and pretty much Scotti-Anne's whole life is in the back seat of her parent's van driving Dane to pageants all over the country. One day, Scotti-Anne's middle school has a pageant called Marsh Mid. Princess. She didn't want to be in it but her best friend's mom wouldn't let her be in the pageant if Scotti- Anne wasn't in the pageants also, so she entered. This story is about Scotti-Anne, who at first thought she wouldn't care if she won or lost, trying SO hard to win. I like this book because the author makes the characters in the book come alive. This is one of the very best books I have ever read.

A splendid book from a good author!!! It's a short book, you can read it in a few hours. Really sweet story, with touch of saddness. Good for ages 11-13, I think, younger kids will not get too much out of it. Thank you, Caroline B. Cooney, for writing a very entertaining read.

This book was the fat TRUTH. The BIG FAT TRUTH of what pageants really are. No one cares about the "smarts", it's just all beauty. Scottie Anne is a bright young girl. She's smart, she has friends...but her sister, Dane, is a beauty pageant wonder worker. She's won practically everything, and if not that, a runner up. Scottie Anne is always getting dragged around to her sister's pageants, and Scottie Anne knows tons about them. But she hesitates to enter when her school has the Marsh Mid Princess Pageant to raise money for the school. And her sister is helping out. This is the one time for Scottie Anne to shine, but will she enter? Learn the real truth about pageants. They don't make you smart, but only beautiful, or not? Find out in this great book by Caroline B. Cooney.

I really loved this book. Scottie-Anne, her parents and friends are delightful characters who are all drawn in to the world of beauty pageants because Scottie-Anne's prima donna of a sister has been a veteran of pageants since infancy. Scottie-Anne is unwittingly entered into a school pageant and much to her dismay, her sister supervises and advises the middle-school set. I like the way Scottie-Anne's parents took an interest in her, even though she was not in pageants and I like the way Scottie-Anne refused to wear a ghastly dress her sister picked out for her. The only thing I did not understand was why the girl's mother would trust Prima Donna's judgment in picking something. Prima Donna Dane should have known that Scottie-Anne was not trying to usurp her place in the beauty industry. I am glad Scottie-Anne got her own dress, her own interest and her own identity. This book was a good one.