Starring Sally J. Freedman As Herself

Hardcover, 298 pages

English language

Published Jan. 1, 1977 by Bradbury Press.

ISBN:: 978-0-02-711070-8

(1 review)

Sally was ten when she made herself a movie star. As big a star as either Esther Williams or Margaret O'Brien, for whom she dreamed up some of her best stories.

Sally would never have had to leave New Jersey to reach stardom except that in 1947 her older brother Douglas became ill, so the Freedman family traveled south to spend eight months in the sunshine of Florida. That's where Sally met her friends Andrea, Barbara and Shelby Peter and Georgia Blue Eyes—and her unsuspecting enemy Adolf Hitler.

Dear Chief of Police: You don't know me but I am a detective from New Jersey. I have uncovered a very interesting case down here. I have discovered that Adolf Hitler is alive and has come to Miami Beach to retire. He is pre- tending to be an old Jewish man...

While she watched and waited, and kept a growing file of …

Sally was ten when she made herself a movie star. As big a star as either Esther Williams or Margaret O'Brien, for whom she dreamed up some of her best stories.

Sally would never have had to leave New Jersey to reach stardom except that in 1947 her older brother Douglas became ill, so the Freedman family traveled south to spend eight months in the sunshine of Florida. That's where Sally met her friends Andrea, Barbara and Shelby Peter and Georgia Blue Eyes—and her unsuspecting enemy Adolf Hitler.

Dear Chief of Police: You don't know me but I am a detective from New Jersey. I have uncovered a very interesting case down here. I have discovered that Adolf Hitler is alive and has come to Miami Beach to retire. He is pre- tending to be an old Jewish man...

While she watched and waited, and kept a growing file of letters under her bed, Sally's Hitler played an important—though not quite starring—role in one of her grandest movie spectaculars. --front flap

20 editions

crabbygirl reviewed Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself by Judy Blume

Review of 'Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

read as part of the Girl Detective Summer Challenge (where readers are encouraged to read at least 1 of the 6-7 books featured in each chapter of Lizzie Skurnick’s Shelf Discovery: The Teenage Classics We Never Stopped Reading) (www.girldetective.net/?p=4506) it's weird to re-read a book from so long ago - i was shocked by some of the language. did i know what those words meant back then? and then there were plot points that made me gasp with adult shock that i doubt i paid much attention to as a twelve or thirteen year old.
the book is set after WW II and sally is certain she's found a retired adolph hitler in miami. but her conjecture is no different than all her other movie-type fantasies she plays in her mind (or out loud with friends) her ignorance is what allows a child to read the book - …

read as part of the Girl Detective Summer Challenge (where readers are encouraged to read at least 1 of the 6-7 books featured in each chapter of Lizzie Skurnick’s Shelf Discovery: The Teenage Classics We Never Stopped Reading) (www.girldetective.net/?p=4506) it's weird to re-read a book from so long ago - i was shocked by some of the language. did i know what those words meant back then? and then there were plot points that made me gasp with adult shock that i doubt i paid much attention to as a twelve or thirteen year old.
the book is set after WW II and sally is certain she's found a retired adolph hitler in miami. but her conjecture is no different than all her other movie-type fantasies she plays in her mind (or out loud with friends) her ignorance is what allows a child to read the book - an adult knows immediately the implications of the situation. for example, in sally's view we are told they've moved to miami for her brother's health, and perhaps the parents want to focus on that. but when douglas confesses to sally that he was chased by a likely pedophile, the mother's inflated worry over a broken bone and her absence at the hospital implies an entirely different worry

Subjects

Fiction dealing with family issues
School stories
Readers - Beginner
Juvenile Fiction / Ethnic / Other
Children's Books/Ages 9-12 Fiction
Children: Grades 4-6