GIDGET

A surfing, boy-crazy teenager comes of age in the summer of 1957 in this classic novel that inspired both movies and television and created an American pop culture icon.

Meet Franzie, part Holden Caulfield, part Lolita. The guys call her Gidget - short for girl midget. Based on the experiences of his own daughter, Frederick Kohner's trend-setting novel became an international sensation with an irrepressible heroine whose voice still echoes every thrill, every fear, and every hope that every teenager ever had about growing up.

All American surf culture comes from Gidget, the ostensible diary of Kathy Kohner, a teensy, gutsy teenage girl who crashed the all-male scene at Malibu Beach north of L.A. in 1957 and earned, from Moondoggie and others, the nickname Gidget, which meant "Girl Midget." Her father, the German immigrant screenwriter Frederick Kohner, fascinated by the beach-shack counterculture, interviewed his perky daughter at length, eavesdropped with permission on her phone calls, fictionalized her adventures, and batted out this influential bestseller.

Frederick Kohner is deceased, but the inspiration for his novel Gidget -his own daughter Kathy Kohner Zuckerman- lives in California by the beach.