16 Comments
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Bob Niemack's avatar

Loved this one. It’s so, so Zolotow! ❤️

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Nina Zolotow's avatar

Haha, the brainwashing started so early

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sharlya gold's avatar

👍

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Betty Kano's avatar

That's a zinger of a story, so nice you remembered - you got the name!

I looked at your mid-century home that you grew up in. Fabulous! You had fun and left all that pink behind.

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Judi S.'s avatar

I remember the perfume called Jontue growing up. My older sister used it and I thought it smelled so good!

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Nina Zolotow's avatar

It would be interesting for you to smell it now because perfume is so good at bringing back memories

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Candida's avatar

I love this one!

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Nina Zolotow's avatar

That’s wonderful! When I was writing it, I was really unsure whether anyone would find it interesting

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Bradford Gibson's avatar

There is a lot going on in this story, but what really got my attention was her description of the girls pink bedroom. It brought back memories of visiting other people’s houses as a child. Of course, what was normal to me - a modest 1950s suburban house with few possessions - was often very different than others kids houses that I sometimes visited. Nina captures both the attraction and strangeness of those experiences.

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Nina Zolotow's avatar

I’m starting to think that this experience is a fairly universal one. I wonder at what age we start noticing all these differences

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Joseph Colbourne's avatar

I love reading your posts.

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Nina Zolotow's avatar

Thank you so much, Joseph! I’m really touched to hear that, and am so grateful you took the time to leave this comment.

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Joseph Colbourne's avatar

I would love to see the house your parents built! I can only estimate in my mind what it might look like.

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Nina Zolotow's avatar

You can find it online! They sold it in the 80s and it was somewhat remodeled after that (why did they paint the natural cedar outside and some of the Chinese ash inside?) but the feeling of the inside is similar to what it was like when I was growing up. Also, it was not in Bel Air. https://modernhomesla.blogspot.com/2012/11/post-and-beam-pagoda-zolotow-house-john.html

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Joseph Colbourne's avatar

So cool! The painting is unfortunate but overall, it still looks beautiful.

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Judi S.'s avatar

Looks like a movie star’s house😁

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