The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole - Sue Townsend

The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole

Author: Sue Townsend

Summary: Adrian Mole is a boy growing up in Britain, aged 13 3/4. He lives with his mother, his father, and an animal known only as 'the dog.' And this is his diary, which goes on for a year and a quarter.

It starts off nicely, revealing Adrian's personality. His best friend is Nigel, and he's in love with a girl named Pandora. The dog provides amusement by eating a model pirate ship and having model pirates surgically removed from his stomach. Meanwhile, Adrian decides to 'become an intellectual' and read classics even as Nigel starts to go out with Pandora, the only girl Adrian ever loved.

One day, Adrian dares to wear red socks to school (horrors!) instead of regulation black. He gets a lecture on the dangers of being a nonconformist, but it's worth it. Because Pandora decides to start a Red Sock Revolution with Adrian & friends and suddenly EVERYONE is wearing red socks. The RSR was almost immediately put down, but it brought Adrian and Pandora together.

Mr. Lucas, the guy down the street, is getting a divorce because his wife ran off with another woman. Adrian's mother keeps going down there and 'comforting' him and Adrian is blind to her philandering as he gets wrapped up in Pandora and measuring this thing.

Adrian's father isn't blind, though. They split up and Adrian's mother leaves town with Mr. Lucas. They fight over who doesn't get custody of Adrian and his mother wins. But awhile later, Adrian's father was fired from his job. Their income sinks and soon the electricity is turned off and everything is in dire straits!

Coupled with this is Adrian's frank but funny description of a field trip on a bus to a museum. By the end of the trip a teacher had resigned, the bus driver had gone mad and gotten arrested, one boy was charged with theft, and the museum decided to accept no more groups of students.

Meanwhile, Adrian's mother makes him visit occasionally before dumping Mr. Lucas and returning to the house. His mother sets things straight and becomes a secretary for an insurance company. Adrian's father tries unsuccessfully to make spice racks for a living before becoming a foreman at a dock. And Adrian forms the 'Pink Brigade' with Pandora and some others, it's a group of radical thinkers. The book ends with Adrian accidentally getting his nose glued to a model airplane.