Through No Fault of My Own

Book excerpt: On Christmas Day, 1926, twelve-year-old Clotilde “Coco” Irvine received a blank diary as a present. Coco loved to write—and to get into scrapes—and her new diary gave her the opportunity to explain her side of the messes she created: “I’m in deep trouble through no fault of my own,” her entries frequently began. The daughter of a lumber baron, Coco grew up in a twenty-room mansion on fashionable Summit Avenue at the peak of the Jazz Age, a time when music, art, and women’s social status were all in a state of flux and the economy was still flying high. Coco’s diary carefully records her adventures, problems, and romances, written with a lively wit and a droll sense of humor. Whether sneaking out to a dance hall in her mother’s clothes or getting in trouble for telling an off-color joke, Coco and her escapades will captivate and delight preteen readers as well as their mothers and grandmothers. Peg Meier’s introduction describes St. Paul life in the 1920s and provides context for the privileged world that Coco inhabits, while an afterword tells what happens to Coco as an adult—and reveals surprises about some of the other characters in the diary.