Avi

word craft

blog

Never Mind! a Twin Novel

Never Mind!

co-authored with Rachel Vail
Harper­Collins, 2005

buy the book 
if you liked this book, try:

What’s this book about?

Edward and Meg are like night and day, oil and water. Meg zigs while Edward zags. How could two such dif­fer­ent peo­ple be twins? Well, they are, but they don’t have to like it—or each other.

Sev­enth grade means dif­fer­ent schools for the pair: Brainy Meg’s at ultra­com­pet­i­tive Fis­ch­er, while Charl­ton Street Alter­na­tive School is the place for free­wheel­ing Edward. Odd­ly enough, it’s just when Edward and Meg are final­ly out of each oth­er’s shad­ows that the trou­ble begins.

With­in just a week, Meg’s aspi­ra­tions for pop­u­lar­i­ty, imag­i­nary boyfriend, and angst over a ter­ri­ble yel­low ensem­ble her moth­er has cho­sen com­bine with Edward’s devi­ous plan­ning, lack of singing abil­i­ty, and top-secret soft spot to set off a show­down the likes of which twin­dom has nev­er before seen.

How is it, then, that this final show­down is so much fun? Could it be that Meg and Edward are more alike than they thought?

Nev­er mind. Read the book!

Story Behind the Story

My twin sis­ter, Emi­ly Wor­tis Lei­der, is also a writer. An often pub­lished poet, she is a biog­ra­ph­er as well, pub­lish­ing books about such screen lumi­nar­ies as Valenti­no and Mae West. Once I sug­gest­ed that she write a biog­ra­phy of me. I even sug­gest­ed the title, The Auto­bi­og­ra­phy of my Twin Broth­er, with Cor­rec­tions by Him. She respond­ed like any good sis­ter would: “I have bet­ter uses of my time.”

I shared that sto­ry with my writer friend, Rachel Vail.  Her response was, “I’ll write a book with you.”

read more

Awards and Recognition

  • Starred Review, Book­list, 2004
  • Children’s Choice nom­i­nee, Louisiana

Reviews

“Light, fun, and sure to be pop­u­lar.” (School Library Jour­nal)

buy the book 
if you liked this book, try: