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Tobey Heydon #2
Class Ring
When Tobey Heydon wears Brose's class ring, her family insists that it be understood they are not "going steady." This inevitably leads straight into difficulties and misunderstandings. But what Brose likes best about Tobey, better even than her nearly-red hair and her smile, is that she is so honest. A boy appreciates that quality in a girl. So when she tells him she is going to a college dance with another man, he is secretly reassured even while he growls. However, things become more and more complicated until the class ring changes hands...for a while.
143 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1951
6 people are currently reading
118 people want to read
About the author
Rosamond du Jardin
33 books63 followersRosamond du Jardin, née Neal, first wrote humorous verse and short stories for newspaper syndicates, then went on to sell approximately a hundred stories to such magazines as Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, McCall's and many other publications, abroad as well as in the United States. She also wrote five novels for adults before her first novel for teenagers, Practically Seventeen, which was published in 1949.
She was married to Victor Du Jardin on October 28, 1925. They had three children, Jacqueline Neal, Victor Junior, and Judith Carol, with whom she would later co-author Junior Year Abroad.
In addition to writing, Mrs. Du Jardin frequently spoke at schools, and students enjoyed meeting in person the creator of some of their favorite stories. Mrs. Du Jardin enjoyed her school visits, too, because she liked and respected teenagers as individuals and firmly believed that they are interesting, normal and dependable people.
Born in the small town of Fairland, Illinois, Rosamond du Jardin was two years old when her family moved to Chicago. She lived there and in the Chicago suburbs for the rest of her life.
She was married to Victor Du Jardin on October 28, 1925. They had three children, Jacqueline Neal, Victor Junior, and Judith Carol, with whom she would later co-author Junior Year Abroad.
In addition to writing, Mrs. Du Jardin frequently spoke at schools, and students enjoyed meeting in person the creator of some of their favorite stories. Mrs. Du Jardin enjoyed her school visits, too, because she liked and respected teenagers as individuals and firmly believed that they are interesting, normal and dependable people.
Born in the small town of Fairland, Illinois, Rosamond du Jardin was two years old when her family moved to Chicago. She lived there and in the Chicago suburbs for the rest of her life.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
December 14, 2022
2.5 rounded up
What is it with the 1950s and the spelling of socks as sox? In this book, Tobey knits her boyfriend a pair of sox for Christmas, and he's really pleased ("Sox!"). Also, her best friend Barbie dates a boy nicknamed (let's hope) Sox.
What is it with the 1950s and the spelling of socks as sox? In this book, Tobey knits her boyfriend a pair of sox for Christmas, and he's really pleased ("Sox!"). Also, her best friend Barbie dates a boy nicknamed (let's hope) Sox.
June 1, 2015
This is the second book in the Tobey Heydon series. I read book #1, Practically Seventeen, when I was a kid and found it in my older sister's room, and later I saw book #2 in the library but didn't check it out and never saw it again, which bothered me for a while, but then I turned 11 and got over it. Rereading Practically Seventeen was fun because it was a childhood memory, but I don't have the same fondness for this one.
Class Ring opens a week after Practically Seventeen ends. Tobey is now wearing Brose's class ring, which entails discussions with her parents about how this doesn't mean they're going steady, even though Tobey and Brose clearly think it does mean that. Nevertheless, when Tobey gets an invitation from college man Dick Allen to come up to the university for a weekend, she agrees in order to prove to her parents that she and Brose aren't exclusive. Also, she has it bad for Dick. She also dates Kim Fairbanks for a while, because he's coaching her (ahem) for the school play tryouts, but mainly because Tobey is kind of a terrible girlfriend to Brose.
Not that I'm all that wild about Brose. In addition to being a stompy baby when he doesn't get his way, he also says things like, "that's white of you, mighty white!" when he does. Brose gets along great with Tobey's father, who, as Brose does, finds women stubborn and unreasonable, but, you know, in an adorable way. While Tobey's mother is away for a few weeks, Dad and Brose come up with a system to streamline the housework so that Tobey won't have to work as hard. It doesn't seem to occur to them that they could just help her with the work. When the system turns out to be an abysmal failure, Dad concedes only that men should keep out of it since housework is a "woman's natural province," even though men have ideas about it that are better.
Oh, 1951, how we don't miss you.
Eventually, mom comes home and starts doing all the housework again, and Tobey learns that Brose is always right and I think about whether I want to continue reading these books.
Class Ring opens a week after Practically Seventeen ends. Tobey is now wearing Brose's class ring, which entails discussions with her parents about how this doesn't mean they're going steady, even though Tobey and Brose clearly think it does mean that. Nevertheless, when Tobey gets an invitation from college man Dick Allen to come up to the university for a weekend, she agrees in order to prove to her parents that she and Brose aren't exclusive. Also, she has it bad for Dick. She also dates Kim Fairbanks for a while, because he's coaching her (ahem) for the school play tryouts, but mainly because Tobey is kind of a terrible girlfriend to Brose.
Not that I'm all that wild about Brose. In addition to being a stompy baby when he doesn't get his way, he also says things like, "that's white of you, mighty white!" when he does. Brose gets along great with Tobey's father, who, as Brose does, finds women stubborn and unreasonable, but, you know, in an adorable way. While Tobey's mother is away for a few weeks, Dad and Brose come up with a system to streamline the housework so that Tobey won't have to work as hard. It doesn't seem to occur to them that they could just help her with the work. When the system turns out to be an abysmal failure, Dad concedes only that men should keep out of it since housework is a "woman's natural province," even though men have ideas about it that are better.
Oh, 1951, how we don't miss you.
Eventually, mom comes home and starts doing all the housework again, and Tobey learns that Brose is always right and I think about whether I want to continue reading these books.
August 24, 2012
Tobey Heydon blissfully enters her senior year of high school wearing Brose's class ring. Tobey and Brose have been good friends for years and it feels so natural and perfect to wear his ring. Tobey's parents are a bit concerned that Tobey is pinning herself to one boy when she is so young, but she assures them she and Brose aren't really going steady--though Brose seems to feel they ought to be and Tobey seems pretty content with just Brose, too. Until one fateful day when Dick Allen, the college boy with whom she went on one memorable date the year before, calls her up and asks her to a big dance at his fraternity. It sounds so thrilling, going to a real college dance--and, after all, she promised her parents she wasn't "going steady" so why shouldn't she go with Dick? Of course, this being 1951, everything is sweet and jolly by today's standards but Tobey still manages to find herself in a bit of trouble since Brose isn't any too thrilled with her going and some of the aspects of her college weekend don't end up going as well as she'd hoped they would. Between her ups and downs with Brose, keeping up with all her homework, and having to keep house for the family while her mom is called away to help a family member in California, it seems that Tobey's life couldn't get any more complicated. But when the broodingly handsome star of the high school theater takes Tobey under his wing to for an upcoming play, Tobey finds herself torn once again between her loyalty to Brose and the allure of new romance.
I find it funny that the next book in the series is "Boy Trouble" because it really seems like Tobey has more than enough of that in this book ;-) Poor Brose, I really feel he puts up with a great deal and I think he is just so adorable and sweet in his loyalty and his sureness of Tobey. I really enjoyed the glimpses into high school and dating life back in the day--seems like another world in so many ways and yet the emotions are all so timeless. Tobey's father has some especially humorous moments in this book (he's no Frank Galbraith in efficiency, let's put it that way) and I once again appreciated Tobey's loving family and good parents. We get some winter holiday scenes in this book (like the first) so it would make a nice choice for a breezy, entertaining holiday read. I am eager to continue the series.
I find it funny that the next book in the series is "Boy Trouble" because it really seems like Tobey has more than enough of that in this book ;-) Poor Brose, I really feel he puts up with a great deal and I think he is just so adorable and sweet in his loyalty and his sureness of Tobey. I really enjoyed the glimpses into high school and dating life back in the day--seems like another world in so many ways and yet the emotions are all so timeless. Tobey's father has some especially humorous moments in this book (he's no Frank Galbraith in efficiency, let's put it that way) and I once again appreciated Tobey's loving family and good parents. We get some winter holiday scenes in this book (like the first) so it would make a nice choice for a breezy, entertaining holiday read. I am eager to continue the series.
April 5, 2016
It's unfashionable these days to admit that aesthetics and politics can differ. To like an artwork, these days, is to politically agree with it. This leads to bad judgments in every direction; not only is good art criticized and bad art praised because of ideological content (e.g. the Christian Rock genre), but you get spectacles like nerds pretending that a pile of nigh-reactionary garbage like Pacific Rim is somehow progressive because they aesthetically adore its giant robots and slimy monsters. While I recognize that the proposition that the purpose of art is to teach moral values is probably the norm throughout history, and the modernist argument that art is amoral a weird outlier, I still prefer the latter, and believe it leads to better thinking about both the arts and morality/politics (which I don't know how to distinguish between, these days, which is probably also no good).
All this to preface that, despite my complete ideological opposition to the High Modernism of the Truman/Eisenhower/Kennedy era, I have a very definite aesthetic attraction to it. And not only the vast-scale, highbrow masterpieces of International Style by Oscar Niemeyer, Eero Saarinen, and Mies van der Rohe. My friend Jason's family had a large collection (now destroyed by flooding, alas) of 50s/60s magazines like Good Housekeeping and Better Homes and Gardens, which I would delightedly browse for hours when visiting, looking at the manicured suburban dream encoded within: green grass, blue skies, white clouds, a kitchen full of the latest modern conveniences. The ultimate High Modernist project, Disney's original EPCOT scheme, gives a quick look at both the appeal and the horror of such an existence: "A place for everything, and everything in its place," rationalized and comforting, stifling and oppressive, completely normalized towards a very particular white Protestant bourgeios heterosexual male American population and set of values.
I can't live there. Even ignoring the political reasons. I like a confused, unplanned, organic hyper-urban life; even Manhattan's grid is too orderly for me, and I only feel really at home someplace like Tokyo, a chaotic crowded maze. I've lived in suburbia, and it was as horrifying and soul-crushing as it's supposed to be; I sat one warm summer evening strumming an acoustic guitar on my own front lawn, and the cops came, called by neighbors to investigate a suspicious character. But I like occasionally to visit, not the reality, but the dream, of a life where everything is laid out for you, you are a tiny piece of a vast system. So I looked at those magazines, especially their ads; I watch Coronet instructional films on YouTube; and when my friend Tim sent me this book in the mail, I read it eagerly. It worked very well as a visit to that specific millieu.
The main story is that our 17-year-old teenage heroine, Tobey Heywood, accepts her boyfriend Brose Gilman's class ring, a symbol of a certain proprietary relationship; proving that the past is a different country, the moral is that premature commitments of this kind are dangerous and lead to hurt feelings. Naturally, Tobey's parents say as much in the opening pages: "At your age, I should think it would be a lot more fun to play the field," says her mother. They prefer that she would date promiscuously and casually. I'm a bit bewildered by it, but then I never went on any dates at all in high school, so what do I know. They extract a promise that even with this class ring Tobey and Brose will not be officially going steady, which promise Tobey uses to her advantage, scoring a date to a weekend-long frat party with hunky college sophomore Dick Allen (her parents strongly encourage this, more proof of evolving mores.) The stolid, stupid, boring Brose is increasingly annoyed by her splitting her affections between him and (the equally boring) Dick, but only finally breaks up with her when pretentious beatnik Kim Fairbanks woos her into joining drama club and kissing him at the movies. It's all pretty low-key and low-drama; it's lucky I wasn't in it for the story, but rather the 1951 suburban teen millieu, too early even for Elvis, entirely rebellion-free.
Borges says that the authentic product of a culture contains no obvious "local color" related to that culture, his favorite (false) example being that there are no camels in the Koran; yet this book, a true product of the 50s, contains some choice stuff for me. After school the kids hang out eating hamburgers and drinking malteds at Joe's Grill (Joe is the only person in the book who isn't completely and totally WASP; "His last name ends in -opolis and nobody knows how to pronounce it," explains Tobey.) The college kids go to a place called the Barn. At the parties the girls wear strapless "formals" with daringly plunging necklines, accessorized with ballet flats and black velvet chokers, and call things "sensational", "swoony", "positively screaming". Tobey's elder sister Alicia, all of 19, is married to a pre-med student at the same Midwestern college which Dick attends, and they live in a village of prefab quonset huts for married students on campus. Her other sister, also married, lives in a ranch-style house in California. Tobey comes downstairs to meet Kim for a date, only to find him and her father "deep in a discussion of the effect of the discovery of atomic energy on modern youth." If it were a period piece, I'd find that last one rather overdoing it.
But also, especially, and much less fun, in the weird little didactic episodes which have nothing to do with the main plot, as when little sister Midge gets them to invite lonely old Miss Wentworth to Christmas, and when Father tries to rationalize the system of housekeeping when Mother is away helping the eldest sister Janet with her newborn. The lessons in these episodes are: filial piety, compassion for elders, and that women and men must stay in their respective societal roles. These bits are dreary, and the ideologies out of style, but in form, they are all too contemporary. You see, in the 50s they thought art should instill political values, too.
All this to preface that, despite my complete ideological opposition to the High Modernism of the Truman/Eisenhower/Kennedy era, I have a very definite aesthetic attraction to it. And not only the vast-scale, highbrow masterpieces of International Style by Oscar Niemeyer, Eero Saarinen, and Mies van der Rohe. My friend Jason's family had a large collection (now destroyed by flooding, alas) of 50s/60s magazines like Good Housekeeping and Better Homes and Gardens, which I would delightedly browse for hours when visiting, looking at the manicured suburban dream encoded within: green grass, blue skies, white clouds, a kitchen full of the latest modern conveniences. The ultimate High Modernist project, Disney's original EPCOT scheme, gives a quick look at both the appeal and the horror of such an existence: "A place for everything, and everything in its place," rationalized and comforting, stifling and oppressive, completely normalized towards a very particular white Protestant bourgeios heterosexual male American population and set of values.
I can't live there. Even ignoring the political reasons. I like a confused, unplanned, organic hyper-urban life; even Manhattan's grid is too orderly for me, and I only feel really at home someplace like Tokyo, a chaotic crowded maze. I've lived in suburbia, and it was as horrifying and soul-crushing as it's supposed to be; I sat one warm summer evening strumming an acoustic guitar on my own front lawn, and the cops came, called by neighbors to investigate a suspicious character. But I like occasionally to visit, not the reality, but the dream, of a life where everything is laid out for you, you are a tiny piece of a vast system. So I looked at those magazines, especially their ads; I watch Coronet instructional films on YouTube; and when my friend Tim sent me this book in the mail, I read it eagerly. It worked very well as a visit to that specific millieu.
The main story is that our 17-year-old teenage heroine, Tobey Heywood, accepts her boyfriend Brose Gilman's class ring, a symbol of a certain proprietary relationship; proving that the past is a different country, the moral is that premature commitments of this kind are dangerous and lead to hurt feelings. Naturally, Tobey's parents say as much in the opening pages: "At your age, I should think it would be a lot more fun to play the field," says her mother. They prefer that she would date promiscuously and casually. I'm a bit bewildered by it, but then I never went on any dates at all in high school, so what do I know. They extract a promise that even with this class ring Tobey and Brose will not be officially going steady, which promise Tobey uses to her advantage, scoring a date to a weekend-long frat party with hunky college sophomore Dick Allen (her parents strongly encourage this, more proof of evolving mores.) The stolid, stupid, boring Brose is increasingly annoyed by her splitting her affections between him and (the equally boring) Dick, but only finally breaks up with her when pretentious beatnik Kim Fairbanks woos her into joining drama club and kissing him at the movies. It's all pretty low-key and low-drama; it's lucky I wasn't in it for the story, but rather the 1951 suburban teen millieu, too early even for Elvis, entirely rebellion-free.
Borges says that the authentic product of a culture contains no obvious "local color" related to that culture, his favorite (false) example being that there are no camels in the Koran; yet this book, a true product of the 50s, contains some choice stuff for me. After school the kids hang out eating hamburgers and drinking malteds at Joe's Grill (Joe is the only person in the book who isn't completely and totally WASP; "His last name ends in -opolis and nobody knows how to pronounce it," explains Tobey.) The college kids go to a place called the Barn. At the parties the girls wear strapless "formals" with daringly plunging necklines, accessorized with ballet flats and black velvet chokers, and call things "sensational", "swoony", "positively screaming". Tobey's elder sister Alicia, all of 19, is married to a pre-med student at the same Midwestern college which Dick attends, and they live in a village of prefab quonset huts for married students on campus. Her other sister, also married, lives in a ranch-style house in California. Tobey comes downstairs to meet Kim for a date, only to find him and her father "deep in a discussion of the effect of the discovery of atomic energy on modern youth." If it were a period piece, I'd find that last one rather overdoing it.
But also, especially, and much less fun, in the weird little didactic episodes which have nothing to do with the main plot, as when little sister Midge gets them to invite lonely old Miss Wentworth to Christmas, and when Father tries to rationalize the system of housekeeping when Mother is away helping the eldest sister Janet with her newborn. The lessons in these episodes are: filial piety, compassion for elders, and that women and men must stay in their respective societal roles. These bits are dreary, and the ideologies out of style, but in form, they are all too contemporary. You see, in the 50s they thought art should instill political values, too.
July 19, 2018
Loved this book when I read it as a teenager and loved it this time around too.
July 13, 2020
I calculate that Tobey was born in 1934 or thereabouts. That would make her 86 this year, likely older than the reclusive relative Miss Tess Wentworth was in the story. Such innocence. Such a white middle-class bubble.
November 5, 2022
I love how Tobey learns that all things are not how they seem originally. I love the growth you see from the start of the story to the end of the story. And I love the willingness to forgive that both Tobey and Brose exhibit.
February 14, 2019
It was such a good book just like the first one. I am so gald it ended the way it did with Tobey and Brose making up and being together in the end.
October 21, 2021
Not quite as fun as Practically Seventeen.
September 28, 2023
Love this series!
November 11, 2025
so cute and wholesome.
July 28, 2010
It was fun to return to these books. I still like Tobey very much. It used to be that exchanging your class ring or getting pinned were signs of going steady. Now you change your status on Facebook from "single" to "in a relationship with..."
July 31, 2007
Should Tobey and Brose go steady? What a simpler era!
I think this was one of the first books I ever purchased for myself. It was fifty cents, a Berkley Medallion paperback.
I think this was one of the first books I ever purchased for myself. It was fifty cents, a Berkley Medallion paperback.
January 22, 2008
Another Tobey Heydon book that I read like a self-help manual. How To Get a Class Ring Out of An Ordinary Boyfriend. :D
March 16, 2016
Such a funny book. I love books written in the 50s for teens. Love the clothes and the dates.
April 20, 2024
I don’t have much to say. I like these books for their simplicity. I know I’m supposed to root for Brose, but Dick is so much better. Brose is an ass.
September 11, 2016
How can anyone read these as teens and not own some sort of copy...
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews