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Sweet Valley Twins Super Editions #7
Jessica's Animal Instincts
Furry new friends...
Taking care of animals is easy! That's what identical twins Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield and their friends think when they volunteer at the Sweet Valley Zoo.
Until Elizabeth accidentally lets a mischievous monkey named Spanky out of his cage and Spanky begins showing up in the stranges places...
Until Bruce Patman, who is secretly scared of birds, takes care of a baby bird named Drumstick, and Drumstick just won't leave Bruce alone...
Until Jessica falls in love with Gus, a grizzly bear cub who's lost his mother. When the zookeeper tells Jessica they must return Gus to the wild, can Jessica say good-bye to her furry friend?
Taking care of animals is easy! That's what identical twins Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield and their friends think when they volunteer at the Sweet Valley Zoo.
Until Elizabeth accidentally lets a mischievous monkey named Spanky out of his cage and Spanky begins showing up in the stranges places...
Until Bruce Patman, who is secretly scared of birds, takes care of a baby bird named Drumstick, and Drumstick just won't leave Bruce alone...
Until Jessica falls in love with Gus, a grizzly bear cub who's lost his mother. When the zookeeper tells Jessica they must return Gus to the wild, can Jessica say good-bye to her furry friend?
183 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1996
About the author
Francine Pascal
1,149 books1,853 followersFrancine Paula Pascal was an American author best known for her Sweet Valley series of young adult novels. Sweet Valley High, the backbone of the collection, was made into a television series, which led to several spin-offs, including The Unicorn Club and Sweet Valley University. Although most of these books were published in the 1980s and 1990s, they remained so popular that several titles were re-released decades later.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
December 18, 2019
I never read this one as a kid.
Jessica was so annoying in the beginning of this book, but her subplot with Gus was so adorable. I also loved Liz getting tricked by a monkey, and her expression on the cover cracks me up.
I’ve always heard the “Bruce is terrified of birds” story but didn’t know where it originated from - it’s this book! Of course he says he’s merely “just... concerned” about birds, and I laughed every single time he said it. (Also, who on earth is Melissa?)
All in all, this one was enjoyable, even reading it for the first time as an adult!
Jessica was so annoying in the beginning of this book, but her subplot with Gus was so adorable. I also loved Liz getting tricked by a monkey, and her expression on the cover cracks me up.
I’ve always heard the “Bruce is terrified of birds” story but didn’t know where it originated from - it’s this book! Of course he says he’s merely “just... concerned” about birds, and I laughed every single time he said it. (Also, who on earth is Melissa?)
All in all, this one was enjoyable, even reading it for the first time as an adult!
May 20, 2019
Jessica
So, after this book we can confirm that Jessica is 100% a sociopath. She hates animals. Even cats and dogs. Of course, this book is about her falling in love with a bear cub... but a GRIZZLY bear that will eventually grow up to be huge and eat her. (We can only hope). But let me back up. So the twins have summer internships for their schools. Liz knows that Jess didn't apply for anything ahead of time, so she signs them both up for the zoo. They both get accepted (along with Bruce and a chick named Melissa), and Jessica is furious, being the animal hater that she is. She wanted a job in the Sweet Valley Mall working at a makeup store. Lila is working at a clothing store in the mall, so Jessica must one-up her, naturally. Which she can't do at the zoo. But when she calls Mrs. Fiske at the makeup store, she's informed that they don't have any current openings. Jessica makes her take down her information anyway.
At the zoo, Jessica is placed in the bear habitat, where she is sure she will be eaten alive (again, we can only hope). Her supervisor is Justin, a guy who is so excited about bears that it makes Jessica sick. She grumbles and groans and groans and grumbles for the first couple of days. She hates her outfit, which is green overalls that smell like the zoo. So Jessica goes to the mall to find an internship with ANYBODY else, but she has no luck. She goes back to the zoo defeated.
But one day a mama bear and her cub are brought in. Justin tasks Jessica with watching them while he takes care of business. But while Jess is watching them the mama bear makes crazy noises in her sleep and when Jessica gets back from searching for Justin she finds that the mama has died. Out behind the mama comes the cute bear cub, who Jess later christens Gus after her stuffed teddy bear at home. The bear imprints on her, basically, and he will not be soothed by anyone else, not even Elizabeth.
It's a problem because Mrs. Fiske finally gets back to Jessica with an offer. She immediately accepts, but the whole time she's there she can only think of Gus. After trying and failing to get Liz to comfort Gus, Justin frantically calls Jess and tells her that absolutely no one else will soothe him. Jess immediately leaves the makeup job (where it turns out that Mrs. Fiske is a bitch) and begs Justin to be taken back at the zoo. He accepts, and Jess fills her days with cuddling and playing with Gus. She goes around in a dreamlike state ignoring both Liz and Steven.
But Jessica doesn't realize that Gus can't stay at the zoo forever because, well, he's a grizzly bear. She is devastated when she learns the news. But Jessica has a plan, which I'm sure you can already imagine is insane and not at all practical: she's going to sneak Gus out in her brother's camping backpack and keep him at her house so that she doesn't have to say goodbye. I'm not quite sure what her plan is once he is grown and decides to eat her and her entire family and most of their house and also the neighborhood as well.
Things quickly go awry when Jessica wakes up the next morning to find Gus interrupting her mom's meeting with clients by eating out of their trashcan. Justin is called and Jessica finally relents that she must let him go into the wild. Won't the other bears reject him though because of Jessica's human smell on him? Anyway.
They leave him in a beautiful place, and Jessica is satisfied.
Elizabeth
And now we know that Liz is 100% self-righteous, because she is placed in the monkey habitat, where she immediately comes to believe that monkeys are stupid. She just thinks they are like the rowdy guys at her middle school. Liz was the one excited for the internship at the zoo, but she spends basically the whole time saying to herself how much more superior humans are to animals (or monkeys, anyway).
So, to teach her a lesson, a little gray monkey named Spanky gets loose when Liz forgets to lock the gate one afternoon. She sees him everywhere. In Casey's, on her street, in the school auditorium, and even in her own house (at the same time Jessica's bear is loose). Liz can never seem to catch him, and her supervisor at the zoo, Madeleine, seems actually pretty chill about a loose monkey in Sweet Valley.
One day Spanky comes back to taunt Liz at the zoo. Liz admits defeat by telling him he wins. When Liz gets home Madeleine calls and tells her that Spanky decided to come back to the zoo and be with his friends. Liz finally admits that monkeys ARE incredibly smart.
Geez Liz. You're even dumber than Jessica.
Bruce
Bruce's plot is pretty simple. He and Melissa are placed in the bird habitat. However, it turns out that Bruce is afraid of birds, so he is not thrilled at the prospect of working with them for the next two weeks. But he wants to impress Melissa, so he reluctantly agrees. Melissa can tell pretty much right away that he is terrified of birds (although Bruce thinks he's being so smooth about it). Bruce gets assigned to watch eggs, which he thinks will be pretty harmless since the eggs aren't birds with sharp beaks and claws yet. But one bird hatches and imprints on him and will not leave him alone. He names the chick Drumstick, as in a chicken drumstick that you eat, and Melissa is super turned off by this.
On the last day of the internship Bruce is changing out of his overalls and is excited to never have to deal with the birds again. But before he can put his pants on, he notices that Drumstick is stuck on a ledge with huge raptors circling her. She's crying out for him, and Bruce can't resist. He's afraid of what the giant birds might do. So he slowly climbs up to rescue her (in his underwear!), and it turns out that Melissa sees the whole thing. She gives him a kiss on the cheek and they end up getting ice cream at Casey's together.
Quotes:
Jessica suppressed a groan. How could people expect her to think so far ahead?
Justin: They have a mother grizzly bear and a cub that someone found outside a mall near Fresno.
[Has anyone found a grizzly outside of a mall ever? Maybe it's normal in California.]
Steven: I didn't realize my sister was capable of such compassion.
[Don't worry, Steven. Jessica isn't.]
So, after this book we can confirm that Jessica is 100% a sociopath. She hates animals. Even cats and dogs. Of course, this book is about her falling in love with a bear cub... but a GRIZZLY bear that will eventually grow up to be huge and eat her. (We can only hope). But let me back up. So the twins have summer internships for their schools. Liz knows that Jess didn't apply for anything ahead of time, so she signs them both up for the zoo. They both get accepted (along with Bruce and a chick named Melissa), and Jessica is furious, being the animal hater that she is. She wanted a job in the Sweet Valley Mall working at a makeup store. Lila is working at a clothing store in the mall, so Jessica must one-up her, naturally. Which she can't do at the zoo. But when she calls Mrs. Fiske at the makeup store, she's informed that they don't have any current openings. Jessica makes her take down her information anyway.
At the zoo, Jessica is placed in the bear habitat, where she is sure she will be eaten alive (again, we can only hope). Her supervisor is Justin, a guy who is so excited about bears that it makes Jessica sick. She grumbles and groans and groans and grumbles for the first couple of days. She hates her outfit, which is green overalls that smell like the zoo. So Jessica goes to the mall to find an internship with ANYBODY else, but she has no luck. She goes back to the zoo defeated.
But one day a mama bear and her cub are brought in. Justin tasks Jessica with watching them while he takes care of business. But while Jess is watching them the mama bear makes crazy noises in her sleep and when Jessica gets back from searching for Justin she finds that the mama has died. Out behind the mama comes the cute bear cub, who Jess later christens Gus after her stuffed teddy bear at home. The bear imprints on her, basically, and he will not be soothed by anyone else, not even Elizabeth.
It's a problem because Mrs. Fiske finally gets back to Jessica with an offer. She immediately accepts, but the whole time she's there she can only think of Gus. After trying and failing to get Liz to comfort Gus, Justin frantically calls Jess and tells her that absolutely no one else will soothe him. Jess immediately leaves the makeup job (where it turns out that Mrs. Fiske is a bitch) and begs Justin to be taken back at the zoo. He accepts, and Jess fills her days with cuddling and playing with Gus. She goes around in a dreamlike state ignoring both Liz and Steven.
But Jessica doesn't realize that Gus can't stay at the zoo forever because, well, he's a grizzly bear. She is devastated when she learns the news. But Jessica has a plan, which I'm sure you can already imagine is insane and not at all practical: she's going to sneak Gus out in her brother's camping backpack and keep him at her house so that she doesn't have to say goodbye. I'm not quite sure what her plan is once he is grown and decides to eat her and her entire family and most of their house and also the neighborhood as well.
Things quickly go awry when Jessica wakes up the next morning to find Gus interrupting her mom's meeting with clients by eating out of their trashcan. Justin is called and Jessica finally relents that she must let him go into the wild. Won't the other bears reject him though because of Jessica's human smell on him? Anyway.
They leave him in a beautiful place, and Jessica is satisfied.
Elizabeth
And now we know that Liz is 100% self-righteous, because she is placed in the monkey habitat, where she immediately comes to believe that monkeys are stupid. She just thinks they are like the rowdy guys at her middle school. Liz was the one excited for the internship at the zoo, but she spends basically the whole time saying to herself how much more superior humans are to animals (or monkeys, anyway).
So, to teach her a lesson, a little gray monkey named Spanky gets loose when Liz forgets to lock the gate one afternoon. She sees him everywhere. In Casey's, on her street, in the school auditorium, and even in her own house (at the same time Jessica's bear is loose). Liz can never seem to catch him, and her supervisor at the zoo, Madeleine, seems actually pretty chill about a loose monkey in Sweet Valley.
One day Spanky comes back to taunt Liz at the zoo. Liz admits defeat by telling him he wins. When Liz gets home Madeleine calls and tells her that Spanky decided to come back to the zoo and be with his friends. Liz finally admits that monkeys ARE incredibly smart.
Geez Liz. You're even dumber than Jessica.
Bruce
Bruce's plot is pretty simple. He and Melissa are placed in the bird habitat. However, it turns out that Bruce is afraid of birds, so he is not thrilled at the prospect of working with them for the next two weeks. But he wants to impress Melissa, so he reluctantly agrees. Melissa can tell pretty much right away that he is terrified of birds (although Bruce thinks he's being so smooth about it). Bruce gets assigned to watch eggs, which he thinks will be pretty harmless since the eggs aren't birds with sharp beaks and claws yet. But one bird hatches and imprints on him and will not leave him alone. He names the chick Drumstick, as in a chicken drumstick that you eat, and Melissa is super turned off by this.
On the last day of the internship Bruce is changing out of his overalls and is excited to never have to deal with the birds again. But before he can put his pants on, he notices that Drumstick is stuck on a ledge with huge raptors circling her. She's crying out for him, and Bruce can't resist. He's afraid of what the giant birds might do. So he slowly climbs up to rescue her (in his underwear!), and it turns out that Melissa sees the whole thing. She gives him a kiss on the cheek and they end up getting ice cream at Casey's together.
Quotes:
Jessica suppressed a groan. How could people expect her to think so far ahead?
Justin: They have a mother grizzly bear and a cub that someone found outside a mall near Fresno.
[Has anyone found a grizzly outside of a mall ever? Maybe it's normal in California.]
Steven: I didn't realize my sister was capable of such compassion.
[Don't worry, Steven. Jessica isn't.]
May 26, 2024
Super silly, but it is what it is.
Gus the bear cub was adorable and I like how Spanky the monkey messed with Liz.
Liz and Jess don't come off too well here.
Jess is a total brat at the beginning, and changes her mind about zoo internships only coz she falls in love with Gus the cub. Which is fine as far as a redemption arc goes in Sweet Valley, but:
- I don't care if she couldn't have saved Gus's mom no matter what. Her selfishness and inattention led to poor Gus being alone with his dead mom for longer than he should have been all because Jess had to ask about another internship and then forgot where her supervisor Justin said he'd be. Also, boo on the Sweet Valley animal control who used too much tranquilizer on that poor mama bear.
- Her idea to kidnap Gus so he could live with her forever instead of returning to the wild is understandable for a kid but I like to think a 12 year old would have enough scientific knowledge to know how selfish that plan is. If she really loved Gus, wouldn't she want him to be out in the wild living his life instead of being trapped in a cage? As much as she loved him, it was really how much he entertained her that she loved. Which works for a book from 1996 but I like to think kids today will be more self-aware.
Liz
- meh on her total superiority of thinking monkeys can't possibly be smart. So happy Spanky proved her wrong. Lol at Steven getting caught in the trap meant for Spanky (that Spanky was smart enough to work his way around).
Bruce
- his whole story arc from being deathly afraid of birds to caring for the little baby bird who'd imprinted on him was cute, but boo on him naming a cute baby bird Drumstick, "as in finger lickin' good."
- yay for the Toronto Raptors reference.
- also joke's on Melissa who's supposed to be the smart one about birds. I guess this was written before it became common knowledge that birds are dinosaurs coz she laughed at Bruce for thinking a dinosaur was gonna come out of the egg.
Lol overall on the animal misadventures with Mrs Wakefield's clients, Mr and Mrs Tweed. Totally ridonkulous but funny.
I'd bought this book at a book fair for the nostalgia factor, coz I wanted an SVT book on my current shelves. Especially since i enjoyed the SVT graphic novels. But this one just made me realize how much I've outgrown these books, so I'm gonna pass it on.
Also lol I just realized the original price of this book was C$4.99, and the vendor at the fair was selling it (and similar books from the 90s) for C$5 each. I hadn't realized she'd inadvertently charged the original price, lol.
Gus the bear cub was adorable and I like how Spanky the monkey messed with Liz.
Liz and Jess don't come off too well here.
Jess is a total brat at the beginning, and changes her mind about zoo internships only coz she falls in love with Gus the cub. Which is fine as far as a redemption arc goes in Sweet Valley, but:
- I don't care if she couldn't have saved Gus's mom no matter what. Her selfishness and inattention led to poor Gus being alone with his dead mom for longer than he should have been all because Jess had to ask about another internship and then forgot where her supervisor Justin said he'd be. Also, boo on the Sweet Valley animal control who used too much tranquilizer on that poor mama bear.
- Her idea to kidnap Gus so he could live with her forever instead of returning to the wild is understandable for a kid but I like to think a 12 year old would have enough scientific knowledge to know how selfish that plan is. If she really loved Gus, wouldn't she want him to be out in the wild living his life instead of being trapped in a cage? As much as she loved him, it was really how much he entertained her that she loved. Which works for a book from 1996 but I like to think kids today will be more self-aware.
Liz
- meh on her total superiority of thinking monkeys can't possibly be smart. So happy Spanky proved her wrong. Lol at Steven getting caught in the trap meant for Spanky (that Spanky was smart enough to work his way around).
Bruce
- his whole story arc from being deathly afraid of birds to caring for the little baby bird who'd imprinted on him was cute, but boo on him naming a cute baby bird Drumstick, "as in finger lickin' good."
- yay for the Toronto Raptors reference.
- also joke's on Melissa who's supposed to be the smart one about birds. I guess this was written before it became common knowledge that birds are dinosaurs coz she laughed at Bruce for thinking a dinosaur was gonna come out of the egg.
Lol overall on the animal misadventures with Mrs Wakefield's clients, Mr and Mrs Tweed. Totally ridonkulous but funny.
I'd bought this book at a book fair for the nostalgia factor, coz I wanted an SVT book on my current shelves. Especially since i enjoyed the SVT graphic novels. But this one just made me realize how much I've outgrown these books, so I'm gonna pass it on.
Also lol I just realized the original price of this book was C$4.99, and the vendor at the fair was selling it (and similar books from the 90s) for C$5 each. I hadn't realized she'd inadvertently charged the original price, lol.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 19, 2021
Clean, no swearing.
June 22, 2013
Jessica seems the one that loves to rescue animals
January 24, 2016
Kind of cute story. It deals with three different issues by the main characters of the story, Jessica, Elizabeth and Bruce Patman. I felt annoyed with Elizabeth's character in this issue though.
February 1, 2016
Kind of cute story. It deals with three different issues by the main characters of the story, Jessica, Elizabeth and Bruce Patman. I felt annoyed with Elizabeth's character in this issue though.
November 13, 2020
I think it is funny how Bruce is afraid birds.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews