The SSR Podcast

It’s Episode 100 of SSR — and Week 3 of Pride Month! There’s so much to celebrate on the podcast this week!

Episode 100 is all about Libba Bray’s A Great and Terrible Beauty, the 2003 YA novel that kicked off the Gemma Doyle Trilogy. Megan Tripp joins Alli to discuss everything from world-building and problematic othering of BIPOC to subtle hints at queerness and young women claiming their agency! You don’t want to miss it.

Follow Megan on Instagram (@booksnblazers).

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We’re back for the second episode of Pride Month 2020!

Allison Punch joins Alli to chat about a book that made a huge impact on her life, Keeping You a Secret by Julie Anne Peters. On this episode, they discuss the lack of queer love stories in mainstream YA in decades gone by and how this book compares to other coming-out narratives. They also dig into the sweet dynamics of the romance in Keeping You a Secret, as well as the homophobia that the main characters experience.

Follow Allison on Instagram (@allisonreadsdc) and Twitter (@ajpunch).

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Episode 98 kicks off Pride Month 2020 on SSR!

This week, Alli is joined by podcaster and kid lit enthusiast Bryce Kelly for a conversation about J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan. And we’re not talkin’ the Disney version! Tune in to hear them chat about this story’s deep publishing/adaptation history, unpack its strict depiction of traditional gender roles and weird conception of parenthood, and consider which characters are “good” and which characters are “bad.”

Bryce is the co-host of the Percy Jackson podcast Radio Camp Half Blood and the former co-host of the Lemony Snicket podcast Unfortunate Associates. They studied children’s literature as an undergraduate at Bard College and regretfully know too much about Roald Dahl. Follow them on Instagram (@bkellygorman), Twitter (@BKellyGorman), and Tumblr. Support their current endeavors on Patreon!

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Every once in a while, Alli has to share what she *really* thinks is going to be an unpopular opinion on the podcast. Well, this is one of those times. Without any nostalgic attachment to Louis Sachar’s Sideways Stories from Wayside School, she’s not quite sure how to feel about it… but you’ll have to tune in for all the details! On this episode, you’ll hear Alli and her guest Katie Cragwall discuss their favorite things about the book’s format/structure, the way it shows its age with respect to name-calling, the extent to which the author was “in on the joke” in writing these stories, and how the book flies in the face of their rule-following natures!

Katie is one of the founders of The Bookly Club, an online book club that’s open to all. Follow The Bookly Club on Instagram (@thebooklyclub) and Twitter (@thebooklyclub).

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There have been so many requests for a Dear America episode — at last, we deliver! On Episode 96, Alli and her guest discuss the fifth installment, Across the Wide and Lonesome Prairie: The Oregon Trail Diary of Hattie Campbell, 1847. Tune in to hear them chat about Alli’s elementary school obsession with all things Oregon Trail, the joys and embarrassments of keeping a diary, and how their reading tastes have developed since childhood. They also talk about the book’s depiction of race relations, share their newfound appreciation for the rigor of the Oregon Trail journey, and determine — without a doubt — how not cut out for it they would be.

The guest on Episode 96 is Jimalion Perry, who works in Emergency Management by day and reads voraciously by night! Follow her on Instagram (@itsabookishworld_) and Twitter (@ItsaBookishWorld) and check out her book blog!

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Long-time listeners of The SSR Podcast will hardly be surprised to discover that Alli is not the biggest fan of survival stories, but on Episode 95, she and her guest revisit Jean Craighead George’s Newbery Honor-winning novel My Side of the Mountain. After all, it is a classic!

Tune in to find out if this is the book to change Alli’s mind about the survival genre and to hear her frustrations about its lack of character context and backstory. How old is the main character? Why did he run away? Why do his parents seem so unconcerned? Episode 95 covers it all.

Guest Akemi Dawn Bowman is the author of Starfish, Summer Bird Blue, and Harley in the Sky. Her upcoming sci-fi series The Infinity Courts is set to release in 2021. Follow Akemi on Instagram (@akemidawnbowman) and Twitter (@akemidawn).

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When it comes to The Baby-Sitters Club and SSR, too much of a good thing is never enough… so it’s lucky for you that Episode 94 is yet another Super Special installment, New York, New York! In this book — the sixth BSC Super Special — the crew has a big apple adventure for their spring break, during which each baby-sitter finds her own NYC story. Some are much more interesting than others, but on this episode, Alli and her guest Megan Angelo discuss each of them, along with their memories of reading the BSC series out of order as tweens, their thoughts on the weird dynamics between adult men and the baby-sitters, the subtle nods to race and masculinity in Jessi’s storyline, and so much more. They also consider a very controversial question: is it possible that Mary Anne and Stacey are, in fact, very bad baby-sitters? Find out!

Megan Angelo has written about TV, film, women and pop culture, and motherhood for publications including The New York Times, Glamour, Elle, The Wall Street Journal, Marie Claire, and Slate. Followers is her first novel. Follow Megan on Instagram (@meganangelo) and Twitter (@meganangelo).

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Alli experiences a serious case of retroactive FOMO on Episode 93, thanks to a discussion about the first book in Ally Carter’s Gallagher Girls series, I’d Tell You I Love You, But Then I’d Have to Kill You. Along with guest Phoebe Wright, she discusses the many, many cool aspects of the Gallagher Academy, considers how the series may have planted some early feminist seeds, ponders alternate endings, and swoons over the magical first moment of being fully “seen” as an insecure teen. Oh, and there’s talk of Harry Potter and Gilmore Girls!

Phoebe is a NYC-based actor and reader and the voice behind Read & Wright. Follow her on Instagram (@readandwright) and Twitter (@readandwright2) and check out her book podcast Read It or List It.

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Once again, we return to an SSR *~queen~* — Judy Blume! On Episode 92, it’s all about the Hatcher family — Peter, Fudge, baby Tootsie, their parents, and the many adventures and misadventures they get into in Superfudge, published in 1980.

Tune in to hear Alli and her guest discuss Blume’s expert portrayal of sibling and family dynamics, the honesty with which she seems to write about parenting, and the extent to which they related to the grown-ups in the book. They also consider accusations from parents who say that Judy Blume ruined Santa Clause for their children in Superfudge. Yikes!

Caroline Zancan is the author of Local Girls and We Wish You Luck. Follow her on Instagram (@carolinezancan82) and Twitter (@carolinezancan).

Thanks so much to the Girl Means Business podcast for sponsoring Episode 92!

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On Episode 91, get snowed in with Alli, the Stoneybrook babysitters, and guest Margaret Willison, who read her first-ever BSC book for SSR!

Alli and Margaret chat through the situations in which each babysitter finds herself in an unexpected blizzard, discuss how much easier it is to weather a bad storm in 2020 than it was in 1991 when the book was published, and talk more generally about the series and the babysitters themselves.

Margaret is a librarian, writer, and podcaster. Follow her on Instagram (@mrsfridaynext) and Twitter (@MrsFridayNext), check out her culture newsletter Two Bossy Dames, and tune into her TV podcast Appointment Television!

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