(Please do not confuse the TEEN ANGELS book series with the single-season TGIF series “Teen Angel” that aired sometime around 1998, co-starring Ron Glass [Shepherd Book to you] as “Rod, God’s Cousin.” We will talk about “Teen Angel” [SINGULAR] at a later date.)
The time was 1996. I was ten, and allowed to rollerblade down to the branch library by the lake (the small one near Pat’s Pantry, half a mile away from the house, please do not imagine I was allowed to rollerblade to the main library at this time), weather permitting. I was responsible for my own library fines, which were enormous, and would spend several hours reading as much as I could before checking out with the ten-book limit.
I did not know how to brake with my rollerblades until I was fourteen, but I learned to rollerblade at about the age of eight, which leaves about six years of leaping off of the sidewalk onto the nearest patch of grass whenever I wanted to stop or slow down, which made for slow and bloody progress.
Anyhow. One of the series made available for young persons such as myself at the Hoffman Estates Lake Branch was Teen Angels, written by Cherie Bennett and her husband Jeff. I feel like this sort of off-brand, vaguely Christian book experienced a real Golden Age in the late 1990s, although I have absolutely zero evidence to back up this claim. Heaven is real, as is TEEN HEAVEN, obviously, and so is God (referred to as “The Big Guy” but never directly seen) and, kind of surprisingly, Hell and the Devil, but there’s no mention of Jesus or theology of any kind, and none of the Teen Angels express any sort of piety or religious worldview beyond “listen to your heart.” The books were primarily about three teenagers (Cisco, Nicole, and Melody) who died before their time *~*~*oN tHE SaME dAy*~*~* and they were relentlessly cheerful, except for the occasional moment when they took their own premise seriously:
“But I like little kids,” Melody said softly. “Someday I hope to have a whole bunch of kids of my own and –”
She stopped, realizing what she had just said. “I mean,” she finally continued, “I used to hope to have a whole bunch of kids…”
– Teen Angels #5, Nightmare In Heaven
“We had picked up a couple of six packs and I was totally wasted,” Spencer recalled. “I thought it would help take away the pain –”
“But it never does,” Cisco put in.
“Yeah,” Spencer agreed. “Anyway, these dudes dared me to dive into this lake from the bluffs. And I thought, ‘Yeah, I’ll show ’em I’m not a chicken..’”
“You didn’t make it?” Cisco asked softly.
“I’m here, aren’t I?” Spencer replied sharply. He brushed some loose hair off his face. “I broke my neck.”
“Hey, we all did idiot stuff,” Cisco said gently, touching his hand. “It’s just that most of the time we got away with it.”
“Yeah,” Spencer agreed. “You never think anything bad is going to happen to you when you’re alive…” He looked out into the distance again. “Well, it does. And then it’s too late. I’m never playing pro tennis now, that’s for sure.”
– Teen Angels #4, Heaven Help Us!
JD snapped his fingers, and the lights in the Earth Scope room went out. Suddenly, the screen glowed a deep purple, then it filled with a scene of bucolic wonder, at some small farm in some rural area, somewhere Down Below…
She sucked in her breath sharply.
Because right there, on the screen in front of her, was a teenaged girl — she looked to be around sixteen.
And she had just pulled a gun out of her canvas shoulder bag.
“What’s she doing?” Cisco exclaimed.
The girl walked towards one of the horses near the fence on this farm.
The big gray horse looked at the girl soulfully. Then, thinking that the girl was going to feed him an apple or maybe a carrot, the horse ambled slowly and innocently toward the girl.
“No!” Cisco cried, as if she could stop what was happening.
Just then the Earth Scope camera zoomed in for a close-up of the girl.
Holding the gun to the head of the horse.
“No, JD, you’ve got to stop her!” Cisco cried frantically, jumping up from her seat.
But JD didn’t move. And as Cisco watched the Earth Scope in horror, the girl pulled the trigger to the gun and shot the horse in the head.
It died instantly.
– Teen Angels #4, Heaven Help Us!
I loved it.
In series like this one — Sweet Valley High in particular comes to mind — each new installment comes with a handful of pages reminding readers of the original premise, which is weird enough when it’s describing what kind of car the Wakefield twins drove and their perfect size six figures, but transcends inanity and heads straight for the sublime when it’s about TEEN HEAVEN:
“You know, when I was alive,” Cisco began, “we had to drive all day and half the night to go to the beach in florida.”
“And here in Teen Heaven all JD has to do is snap his fingers, and we’re here!” melody pointed out.
“I still don’t get how he did that,” Nicole commented.
“There’s a lot I don’t get about this place,” Cisco surmised, stretching out in the warm sunshine. “But I say, hey, it’s a day at Teen Heaven beach. Enjoy it.”
“Pass me the sunscreen,” Nicole said to Cisco, who took the tube of Coppertone and tossed it to her friend. “I don’t want to get cancer.”
“You’re dead,” Cisco reminded her, “you can’t get cancer.”
– Teen Angels #5, Nightmare In Heaven
These were books wholly without irony; they had taglines like “Cisco has a new Earthly assignment – reform a horse killer” and “There’s a new girl in Teen Heaven, and she’s after Melody’s boyfriend!” They were also (much like Sweet Valley) somehow aggressively chaste and lustful at the same time, Teen Angels frequently refer to the desire to “jump [one another]’s bones” and make out passionately with one another, but they might as well not have bodies between the neck and the knees otherwise. These people talk and act like no teenager I have ever met, which might explain why I was so obsessed with them at the age of ten.
Someone brought four of the books to my housewarming party last week and I haven’t been able to put them down since. Not with lines like:
“The Street Divas are the toughest gang in Salt Lake City.”
“So TeenHeavenWorld is the hugest amusement park ever built, Melody read. It has all the rides from all the world’s greatest parks, plus some rides that don’t even exist Down Below. And it’s not just for our Teen Heaven, but for the Teen Heavens for French kids, and Russian kids, and Mexican kids, and —
As if to underscore this last point, a big group of Asian teens, although they were dressed in very cool, typically American clothes, barreled by, laughing and shouting…and talking happily and hurriedly in Japanese.”
Why is Teen Heaven segregated? Why are there language barriers in Teen Heaven? There’s a place, by the way, called “Ultimate Heaven,” where the Teens can ascend after they receive an unspecified number of points on their Angel Cards (they get points for their Angel Missions); is Ultimate Heaven also separated by national boundaries? And does the nations change in Heaven when their political boundaries shift on earth?
There’s a scene where Cisco secretly submits a film she made in Teen Heaven (I know) to the Sundance Film Festival (I know) and it gets accepted (I KNOW) and JD gives all the Teen Angels permission to attend the premiere (I KNOW), ONLY FOR THE FILM TO BURN OUT THE SECOND IT STARTS PLAYING BECAUSE CISCO “NEEDED TO BE REMINDED TO GIVE UP [HER] EARTHLY DREAMS NOW THAT [SHE’S] DEAD” (I KNOW).
At another point, Teen Angel Melody’s boyfriend Chaz is sent to earth to start dating her human charge and tells her “Just remember, this isn’t real life for us.”
Anyhow, in conclusion, the Teen Angels series: a land of contrasts. As far as I can tell, it ran for six books in an eight-month period and none of the Teen Angels ever got to move on. Now neither can I.
I loved these books so much as a tween. And JD was supposed to be James Dean and he was always going off with Natalie Wood, which made it confusing to me when I found out that Natalie Wood died in her 40s.
Huh. So these books also had the virtue of being Real Person Fic?
Oh my god that’s RIGHT. I got through this entire piece without knowing for sure if I had actually read those books or not, but your comment… yup. I’m pretty sure I read them ALL.
I’ve never heard of these books but oh man, can I relate to going off into the grass to try to stop skating. Ouch. I learned to rollerskate on skates that attached over your shoes, and if they had brakes, I certainly never learned how to use them.
I can’t stop skates. If you press that brake you’re gonna flip forward, right? No sir! I’ll just hit the rink wall, thankyouverymuch.
(and there’s my mom, skating backwards and shit…..the shame)
jumping in grass just always seemed way less terrifying than trying to use the brakes.
I mean, I was a small child, sure, but my very basic grasp of physics just didn’t make it seem like I could brake the way you’re supposed to break without then getting knocked flat on my face by all the remaining energy.
based on current gut feelings, I am still not sure I get this? Can anyone reassure me that anyone can break, not just the athletic and talented?
I used to be cool with the front brakes, but then I got inline skates and completely forgot how to use the (much cooler looking, I’ll admit) 2×2 skates.
They get to play Telecasters in heaven? May reconsider some of my life choices.
Hot tip: Do not Google ‘teen heaven’ to try and find out more about these books. You will get some rather UNRELATED results.
“It’s just another day …at teen heaven beach.”
I have been saying this out loud with various infections for a full ten minutes
a++++ typo
It is the Most Teen Thing to cancel out your entire life in front of you by snapping your neck and have your only lament be “’I’m never playing pro tennis now, that’s for sure.”
I might adopt this as my default complaint. “Oh man, the grocery store didn’t have the kind of pasta I needed. I’m never playing pro tennis now, that’s for sure.”
Man, I hate dare dudes who fuck up tennis careers.
I fear that Ultimate Heaven doesn’t have any rides. Wouldn’t that just be the way?
Hate the horse killing, love the horse killer.
Ultimate Heaven totally would be all roller coaster illusions, which would mean you just wait in endless lines to go through a turnstile to nothing.
You’re like the old people in Zardoz. That’s your reward.
There’s so much joy to be found in weird, off-brand book series For Teens (so, for preteens). I especially love that they always seem to be written by people who’ve forgotten literally everything about being a teenager, and have also possibly never interacted with or even seen a teenager since they were in high school.
“I’m fourteen years old and I love to play those damn video games!” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BY8YIn5okX8
Basically the book equivalent of when I was like 6 and wanted to be “a teenager” for Halloween, so my mom put me in a college sweatshirt and a side ponytail. It was awesome.
I was so disappointed that by the time I got around to being a teenager, fashion had left behind the oversized college sweatshirt + leggings + high-tops + side ponytail thing that had dominated my childhood fantasies of being a cool big kid. Your Halloween costume sounds utterly perfect.
Oh god, I loved these books! (Cherie Bennett’s teen advice column in the newspaper too – so much more hip and edgy than Ann Landers!) I remember in one book, one of the girls slept in a tee shirt and panties rather than pajamas which sounded SCANDALOUS to 12 y/o me – and which lead to me sleeping exactly like that because it seemed cool and grown-up. Such a silly premise, such a long-lasting legacy on my sleepwear!
Isn’t it weird, what sticks with you at that age? I remember reading an interview with Brooke Shields in an InStyle magazine at the doctor’s office while waiting to get my allergy shot when I was around 12, and she mentioned that her mother always told her never to forget to moisturize her neck. I’ve diligently moisturized (terrible word, sorry) my neck ever since.
SAME except for me it was P!nk, and brushing your tongue with your toothbrush to avoid bad breath. Been doing that consistently for at least 13 years now.
It was presented in that really casual, totally ‘normal’ way that only tween girl magazines can do, like ‘P!nk’s real name is Alicia and she got the nickname from her bare butt as a baby. P!nk always brushes her tongue when she’s brushing her teeth, to fight bad breath!’
If her film was burned to teach her a lesson, can you imagine what would burn if they actually did try to jump each other’s “bones”?
“What happened to your face, Cisco? Your lips look like burning charcoal!”
“My lips have turned this way to remind me that my earthly desire for companionship and closeness can never be.”
“Right, cause we’re dead.”
But what if the Holy Ghost, he of the “leave space for” would actually show up and emit sadly inaudible Hanna-Barbera sound effects when they tried to grind on each other?
“Smokey!”
“Jeepers, kids! You’re squishing me!” http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Everyb…
no more cisco and jim no more cisco and jim no more cisco and jim
I’m so honored to have been a small part of the Teen Angels resurgance. It’s almost as if my mission on earth is complete
I love re-visiting the absurd books of our childhoods. I really need to dig out some of my old ones and re-read them (I’m sure I could write a ridiculous compare-contrast piece about Orphan Black vs. the terrible clone series I loved).
You mean “Replica” from the ’90s? Because that was one of my first thoughts when watching Orphan Black…
YES. We just had a discussion about them in the Animorphs post last week. They are…not great. I found the first one in a used bookstore a while ago (I had read them all from the library) and the writing is awful, but there’s definitely something appealing about puberty = developing what are basically superpowers.
Just jumping in to say I also read and loved ALL of these.
okay but i actually got a tattoo of a crescent moon on my right shoulderblade so I could be like a REPLICA CLONE so don’t even tell me they weren’t the greatest books ever written
WHAT HAPPENED TO THAT SERIES THOUGH. It just… stopped? I think? Around number 24ish? Or it’s possible I outgrew them while they were still being published, but oh wow did I love those books.
AMY NUMBER SEVEN
Apropos of nothing, the title of this story made me think of a line from the terrible Rocky and Bullwinkle movie: three spies on a horse, where the horse is also a spy.
CHERIE BENNETT, THO! She also wrote a few books that followed the teen interns of a trashy television talk show. Both the name of the series and the name of the talk show were: TRASH. TRAAAAAAAAASH.
Here are the things I remember about Trash without looking it up:
– the host of Trash, Jazz Jagger, claimed to be the love child of Mick Jagger and someone else. There are several mentions of her publicity photos, which are usually topless, or astride a motorcycle, or both.
– the protagonist was Chelsea, and she was hiding a TERRIBLE SECRET – she was also the daughter of a NOTORIOUS SERIAL KILLER! This was exposed, of course, on live television.
– other interns on Trash included Karma Kushner, the Asian adopted daughter of hippie Jewish parents; Lisha, a friend of Chelsea’s from childhood who turned into The Ultimate Bad Girl, who wore a Cub Scout uniform top tied under the bust on her first day of work; a bunch of useless men.
a) that sounds INCREDIBLE and I would secretly read all of them right now.
b) I’m fascinated that being the daughter of a NOTORIOUS SERIAL KILLER is not even Chelsea’s terrible secret. She has another secret, more terrible than that? COLOUR ME INTRIGUED.
why
did she
shoot
the horse?!?!?!
They shoot horses, don’t they?
http://www.scribbleoneverything.com/images/upload…
I was like, oh she’s going to kill herself and I was emotionally ready for it, and then she turns and shoots the horse right in the dome? Was she like intimidating a witness? Did that horse’s head end up in someone’s kitchen sink?
MY QUESTION EXACTLY
Right?! Why a horse? Was horse-killing a part of the 1990s teen zeitgeist that passed me by? SO MANY QUESTIONS.
Wait so was this inspired by, or an inspiration for, Dar Williams’ “Alleluia”? It sounds like basically the same plot. Either way, gonna go listen to that now.
Did you younger people get to see “The Heavenly Kid”? It was……..not really good, if I remember correctly.
Did any UK-based people read the Angels Unlimited series? (Wikipedia tells me it has since changed its name, but it was Angels Unlimited in my day.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angels_Unlimited It was also about teen angels, and they came to earth on missions to help protect people from the powers of darkness. Heaven involved nightclubs and dojos and hanging out with your friends and sounded very cool. (It did not make me less of an atheist.) I was very fond of them.
Omg yes! I read those voraciously but only vaguely remember the details now – the dojos! And travelling back to the gladiators! And there was one where they met a young shakespeare (who was great at acrobatics?!) and something about learning your *tRuE NaME* would give you power! And the super hot guy antagonist who worked for the dark side but eventually came round and started hanging out with them in heaven! It’s all coming back…
They were published in Australia too! I was in my late teens, early 20s when they were out, but worked in a bookstore and was responsible for the teen fiction section so I totally justified my addiction to them by calling it market research. My favourite one was set in 1920s Hollywood.
YES. I loved those books so much aged about eight to eleven. I was still reading the books when they re-branded to “Agent Angel” but shortly afterwards then they became impossible to find. I remember bits and pieces, like when she’s alone on the beach and sad because she can’t figure out what she’s meant to do during Private Study and the adorable nursery-age angels find her and they grow little orange trees together! Also Lola, from the future, who made hot chocolate like every book.
I got a free t-shirt with the winged A logo from the website, back when there was a website, but I’m not sure where it is now.
I remember that bit! I loved it because it was a bit sad (they were babies that didn’t get to grow up) but also very sweet and gentle. And then back to having Adventures and super detailed descriptions of hot chocolate.
So do you have to do anything to get into Teen Heaven other than die before 20? With French and Mexican sections, Catholics seem to be OK, plus the Russian Orthodox. But a Japanese teen heaven seems to mean that you don’t have to be Christian. Well, unless they’re limited to smaller subgroups of the population in those countries.
And if you die before 10 you work for Santa Claus. http://moviemorlocks.com/2014/12/17/this-week-on-…
I’ve never read these, but checked out the Amazon reviews of book #1 after reading through this and wow were there some passionate (10-year-old?) reviewers posting in 1998…
http://www.amazon.com/Heaven-Cant-Wait-Teen-Angel…
What a beautiful piece of reviewing from 1999: “This was a good story, but the facts were all wrong…I just hope this doesn’t get people thinking that they’ll go to Heaven even if they don’t believe in Christ as their Savoir.”
“After reading the book you’ll learn some things about life and what happens when your wasting it” – truer words were never spoken
I know this is mostly unrelated but it brought back a vivid memory of YA novels from my childhood library, which Google has told me are called the @Cafe. Anyone else remember these? Mostly I think I liked Blue, because she had blue hair.
The world’s sexiest rock star is dressed a bit more modestly than I’d expect.
no no no, that is the TEEN ANGEL in question, the sexiest rock star is named SHAYNE STONE and he is not pictured!
Yes I was confused about that too, though in hindsight, it was foolish of us to have entertained the thought that the World’s Sexiest Rock Star was a woman.
Okay but Shayne and Cisco are both confusing names, gender-wise.
If you believe in Teen Heaven
Then life is just a make-out session;
And if they’ve got an Earth Scope,
Then you know they’re watching while you’re undressin’…
What was the series where every main character was dying? Just one story after another about teenagers with terminal diseases.
Lurlene McDaniel’s books!
Lurlene McDaniel is the very specific Teens with Cancer sub-genre.
Dying Teens was definitely a subgenre I enjoyed the hell out of as a preteen. I also remember reading a lot of books about girls with eating disorders.
Wasn’t it part of the Point Romance series? I LOVED those terminal disease books. I once cried so hysterically at the ending of one that my dad came rushing in to see who was murdering me. Happy times.
I was responsible for my own library fines, which were enormous
Oh gosh, the percentage of my allowance that went to overdue fines…
It was especially unjust because I was completely dependent on my parents for transportation to the library in the sprawly place where we lived.
Who even knew that “horse murderer” was a thing?
Then again, maybe she’d just read Equus. It certainly tramautized me. Was there any mention of an erotic pseudoreligion vis a vis the horse murderer?
Bennett wrote a book called Anne Frank and Me. I can only imagine the train wreck.
I’VE BEEN WAITING 17 YEARS TO DISCUSS TEEN ANGEL (SINGULAR)
…I guess I could wait longer
I’m so honored to have been a small part of the Teen Angels resurgance. It was especially unjust because I was completely dependent on my parents for transportation to the library in the sprawly place where we lived.
i was addicted the Cherie Bennett’s Sunset series, but had NO IDEA these little gems existed! where have they been, all of my life??