American Girl Wiki
Register
Advertisement

This article is about the BeForever version. For the 2019 abridged version, see Maryellen: Taking Off.

Taking Off: A Maryellen Classic Volume 2 is the unabridged second volume of Maryellen's series.

Characters[]

Only in Taking Off[]

Chapter by Chapter Summary[]

Chapters One-Five can be seen as the equivalent of "Book Four."

Chapter One: Bridesmaids, Birthdays and Brainstorms[]

Maryellen and Karen King, Karen Stohlman, and Angela are walking home from school on a sunny April afternoon, and Maryellen is excited about her upcoming tenth birthday. Her birthday is Saturday, May 7, and she says it is just over three weeks away. Karen King asks Maryellen what kind of birthday she is going to have. Maryellen wants something unique. For her seventh birthday, she had a beach party; for her eighth birthday, she played miniature golf; and for her ninth birthday, she went bowling. Karen Stohlman suggests a drive-in movie party, but Maryellen thinks it will be too difficult to coordinate presents and cake at a drive-in theater. Karen King suggests a Davy Crockett-themed party in which all the guests can wear their coonskin caps. All the kids enjoy watching the TV show, and Maryellen has underwear with a female version of Davy on it, called "Daisy Crockett." Karen King suggests that Maryellen could have a coonskin cap-shaped cake and they could sing the show's theme song, but make it about Maryellen of Daytona Beach. The girls find this suggestion very funny.

Karen King asks if Maryellen plans to invite her neighbor Davy to her party. They had been close friends until they had a fight at the beginning of the school year, and now he doesn't even talk to her. Maryellen doesn't think Davy would come to her party even if she asked because he is too busy with his new friend Wayne. She insists that ten is too old to have boys at your party anyway; they should wait to have boys at parties until they're in high school. She knows from her older sister Joan that teenagers had sock hop parties in which they played records and danced with boys; they were called "sock hops" because people would take off their shoes so they wouldn't damage the floor. The girls can't imagine that a boy like Wayne would be less annoying by high school. However, the girls all admire Joan and consider her their best resource for fashion tips, romance, and adulthood, as Joan was 18 and engaged to her boyfriend.

Maryellen comes up with another party idea: a movie-star party in which everyone can dress as their favorite star. She suggests that she could dress as Debbie Reynolds and wear the bridesmaid dress her mother is making for Joan's wedding. The other girls love this idea. Angela wants to be Audrey Hepburn and Karen Stohlman wants to be Grace Kelly, but Karen King can't decide among Elizabeth Taylor, Marilyn Monroe, or Lucille Ball. Maryellen suggests that Scooter could be Rin Tin Tin or Lassie and Maryellen herself could come as J. Fred Muggs, a chimpanzee. The girls all look forward to this possible party, though they ask Maryellen how her bridesmaid dress is coming along. The girls sound hesitant when Maryellen says that her mother is making it; they've all seen the results of some mothers' do-it-yourself attempts. Angela is optimistic, however, and says that the dress will fit Maryellen perfectly because her mother is making it. Maryellen smiles and says that if it doesn't, she'll end up looking like the scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz.

Later that day, Maryellen is standing on a cushion while her mother pins pieces of the tissue paper pattern around her. Mrs. Larkin is sighing a lot, and Maryellen can't see how the paper pieces will all come together to make a dress. She also knows that her mother is going to make bridesmaid dresses for Carolyn, who is 14, and Beverly, who is seven. Maryellen thinks that maybe she should have waited until her mother did those dresses so she had more experience, but it was too late to say that now. She also has not told her mother that she was hoping to have her dress finished in time for her birthday, and she is concerned that telling her that will make her worry more. When Mrs. Larkin sighs again, Joan looks up from where she's curled up with a book and assures her mother that she doesn't need to go to all this trouble; she would be fine with dresses off the rack from O'Neal's. Mrs. Larkin says that she and Mr. Larkin got married during the Great Depression and had to skimp for their wedding; she got married in a borrowed suit and she didn't have any bridesmaids. She wants Joan to have everything she couldn't have; but Joan reiterates that she and Jerry are perfectly fine with a small wedding. Mrs. Larkin says that she wants all the details to be important because it's the most important day of a girl's life. By contrast, Joan says that she and Jerry have talked about having their wedding outside at a garden or park, and she wants to wear flats to be more comfortable. Mrs. Larkin is disappointed that Jerry won't wear his white formal U.S. Navy uniform, but again, Joan says that they want their special day to be relaxed.

When Mrs. Larkin says she thinks she's more excited about her marriage than Joan is, Joan explains that she's excited about her marriage, but she sees her marriage differently than her wedding. Her wedding is just one day, but her marriage is for a lifetime. She doesn't want it to be "stuffy or fussy," but Mrs. Larkin insists that it's not stuffy or fussy to do things correctly. She comments that Joan loves books so much that if she left it up to Joan, she'd get married on the steps of the public library. Maryellen jokes that she could carry books instead of a bouquet, and Joan says she does love books almost as much as Jerry. However, she tells her mother that Mrs. Larkin can coordinate her wedding the way she wants. She manages to get Mrs. Larkin to laugh, though Maryellen notices that she pins the sash on backwards while she's distracted.

At school the next day, their teacher, Mrs. Humphrey, writes the date on the board: Tuesday, April 12, 1955. Without even having to turn around, she tells Wayne that he will be sitting in with her for lunch for the next week if he throws a rubber band at Maryellen. Davy grabs the band from Wayne's hand while Maryellen crosses her eyes and sticks out her tongue at Wayne. Then, Mrs. Humphrey informs the class that they will be going to the auditorium for a special school assembly, and she knows that they will all act like gentlemen and ladies. As the class lines up, Wayne tries to trip Maryellen, but she hears someone (possibly Davy) warn her and she is able to step out of the way just in time. When the students enter, they see their principal, Mr. Carey, fiddling with a television set on the stage.

Chapter Two: Rock Around the Clock[]

Mrs. Larkin mentions that Carolyn is a real teenager now, or a "bobby-soxer," as she calls her. She comments that it doesn't feel like it was that long ago that Joan got her first prom dress, a pink one that's still in a closet in their house. Now Joan was preparing to get married.

Chapter Three: Show Biz[]

Chapter Four: Who Do We Appreciate?[]

Chapter Five: The Parade[]

Chapters Six-Nine can be seen as the equivalent of "Book Five."

Chapter Six: A Star[]

Chapter Seven: Flabbergasted[]

Chapter Eight: Songs of the Open Road[]

Chapter Nine: Disaster![]

Chapters Ten-Fourteen can be seen as the equivalent of "Book Six."

Chapter Ten: Groups[]

Chapter Eleven: Get To It![]

Chapter Twelve: Maryellen Takes Off[]

Chapter Thirteen: The Flying Friends[]

Chapter Fourteen: The Most Important Thing[]

Inside Maryellen's World[]

Discusses the scientific and social changes of the 1950s. Topics covered:

  • The symptoms of polio and the treatment of patients at isolation wards, and the celebratory relief after the polio vaccine was announced to be safe and effective.
  • The fear some parents had over the polio vaccines, prompting doctors and health organizations to work promoting the vaccine, with great success.
  • Vanguard 1, a small solar-powered satellite launched by the U.S. government at Cape Canaveral, Florida in 1958 - today it's the oldest man-made satellite still orbiting the earth.
  • The rising popularity of road trips, as more American had cars and paid vacations, and the popular TV shows that made families want to explore the Wild West.
  • Prejudices African Americans faced in the South, where they were segregated from whites and traveling wad different since most restaurants and hotels refused to serve them.
  • Black children having to attend schools with inadequate conditions, despite the schools supposedly being "separate but equal".
  • Brown vs Board of Education, a case that started after Linda Brown of Topeka, Kansas was barred from enrolling in her neighborhood's school and instead sent to a black school farther away.
  • The case leading the Supreme Court to rule segregation as being harmful and unconstitutional - the decision becoming a landmark for the Civil Rights movement.

Items Associated with Taking Off[]

Trivia[]

  • Unlike other characters released either during or after BeForever, Maryellen's first volume can be divided into the six-book format; Volume Two is similar to the second three books. This may be due to the series being in development prior to the BeForever redesign.

See Also[]

References[]

Advertisement