Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great
 | |
| Author | Judy Blume |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Children's novel |
| Publisher | Dutton |
Publication date | 1972 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print Paperback |
| Pages | 144 pp |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-525-36455-2 Parameter error in {{ISBNT}}: invalid character |
| Followed by | Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing |
Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great is a novel published in 1972 and written by Judy Blume.
Plot summary
Sheila Tubman's family is planning on a vacation for the summer, where they leave New York City for the summer live in suburban Tarrytown, and will spend the summer in a house that belongs to George Egran, a professor at Marymount Manhattan College that Sheila's father, Buzz Tubman, works at. At first, Sheila is disappointed that they aren't going to Disneyland, but then changes her mind when she finds out she can have her own bedroom (at their apartment, she must share her bedroom with her older sister Libby, who pretends to be very grown-up and formal).
Once they get there, Sheila has a rough start. She must face several fears, including spiders, thunderstorms, ghosts (when she learns that Tarrytown was where The Legend of Sleepy Hollow took place), the dark and her two greatest fears: dogs (Professor Egran owns a beagle named Jennifer that the Tubmans look after for the summer), and water (her parents insist on swimming lessons). Sheila does not like her bedroom at first, since it belongs to a boy (who has a huge model collection and warns any girls using his room that he will "get" whoever touches his models).
Then Sheila makes friends with a girl her age named Mouse Ellis (a.k.a. the Junior Yo-yo Champion of Tarrytown), as well as twin girls named Jane and Sondra. They attend a cultural arts summer day camp, and enjoy making pottery. Her swimming teacher, Marty, also helps her learning to swim, with Sheila even going as far as admitting she is scared to put her face in the water. Sheila pretends to know everything and can be able to do anything when she is with her new friends, but deep down Mouse knows that Sheila is rather fearful. Sheila also attempts to make a camp newspaper, wanting to do everything by herself, but resorts to having to print it via an old mimeograph machine, and finds it hard work. So she passes the newspaper job to two older boys that form committees and have fun with making a newspaper, and Sheila feels left out, until she decides to become a weather forecaster (so she can know in advance when a thunderstorm is coming).
Jennifer also makes friends with a boy dog (called by the family as "Jennifer's Friend"), which makes Sheila even more nervous. They also find out that Jennifer is going to be a mother, and will eventually have puppies. Libby is excited over this, but Sheila is too nervous about having a puppy in their house. The school puts on a play of Peter Pan, and Sheila and Mouse help work on the scenery. Libby tries out to be Wendy, but due to her bad singing voice, she winds up playing Captain Hook, with great disappointment.
Libby makes friends with the girl that played Wendy, Maryann Markman, and Libby invites her to sleep over the same night Sheila is having her slumber party with Mouse, Sondra and Jane. The party starts out fun, until they make a slam book, which leads into a big fight that involves them throwing Bobby's models at each other. When Libby notices this and tells their mom, Sheila and the others are outraged. After they fix up Bobby's models, they rig a practical joke involving toothpaste on the toilet seat, which Sheila winds up sitting on.
When the summer camp ends, they go on a hayride. Sheila is nervous that the horses pulling their wagon might run wild, or that the Headless Horseman would come out and scare them, and the fact that there's a thunderstorm and a full moon (Sheila thinks a werewolf might come out doesn't help either). Then Sheila must take a swimming test in order to end her swimming lessons. Even though she feels she can't do it the entire time, she passes with flying colors.
Before the Tubmans leave Tarrytown, they have a farewell party, inviting all the friends they made there, including Mouse and her family, Maryann Markman, Marty, the Van Arden twins, and Libby's new boyfriend Hank Crane. Things go well, until Jennifer's friend arrives, as does his owner. They tell him that Jennifer and her friend, Mumford, are going to be parents. Sheila thinks to herself that having a puppy might not be so bad after all.
Sheila learns two things over the summer: It's all right to admit your fears, and pretending to know everything may not be the best choice.
Trivia
- Blume dedicated the book to her father.
- Sheila is also a character in the Fudge books. Other than brief anecdotes, the Hatcher family does not appear in this book. However, Peter Hatcher and his dog, Turtle, appears in the first chapter of the book. But there is a reference to Peter's younger brother Fudge.
- The post-2002 reprints of this book have some lines edited and a bit of new content added to update the technology use in it (for instance, record players are replaced with CD players, and the camp's copier keeps malfunctioning, which is why Sheila must use a mimeograph machine, whereas the original had the camp already still using their mimeograph machine and not having a copier yet).
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