Some girl, that Edie

IBI KASLIK

ALL-SEASON EDIEBy Annabel LyonOrca, 179 pages, $8.95As a child, my equivalent to the adult ritual indulgence of scarfing bon-bons in bed and watching soap operas was eating Hostess sour cream 'n' onion chips while devouring books about feisty little girls. When the too-real, too-nasty social world of scrapping, pinching and relentless mocking became too much, I withdrew to read about girls who were as misunderstood and plucky as I imagined myself to be. In fiction land, I befriended Beverly Cleary's spunky bowl-cut Ramona Quimby; I admired Toronto's answer to girlhood mettle, Bernice Thurman Hunter's Depression-era Booky. Finally, there was the seminal liberated girly text, Carolyn Haywood's 1939 classic "B" is for Betsy. Despite the Betsy books' archaic illustrations of girls in puffy skirts and pedal pushers, Betsy was an ideal role model for hijinks.