Wow! I vaguely remember seeing books from this '90s YA series back in the day, but not because I read them. I'm pretty sure someone I know used to read copies from the library.

The other day, when I saw a book description calling 18 Pine St., a series created by Walter Dean Myers, "the first major young adult series to focus on multicultural characters," I was curious to see if "multicultural" would be a code word for "Black." As I got into this first book, I did indeed find the core gang of friends to be multicultural, matching the back cover picture.

It's clearly the type of book that would be "coolest" for preteen kids to read while they'd still only be imagining what high school would be like. I found this story to be fairly interesting, though I couldn't get the best grip on the writing style. It's easy to read, of course, but for lack of a better way to put it, I couldn't tell at first exactly where certain details and comments were coming from, and then they wouldn't feel spot-on when they landed. The characters actions and reactions didn't always seem to mesh right away either.

Still, even given the '90s setting and YA trends back then, this short novel isn't quite as corny as I thought it might be. Some parts are even genuinely funny, and it's a positive read.

I plan on seeing if any more 18 Pine St. books are still around. ( )