It's The '70s and Sunshine "Sunny" Lewin is a young girl living in Pennsylvania through them. The series starts with Sunny Side Up, which are about Sunny's unexpected summer vacation to Florida to visit her grandfather, Gramps, and explains why she's there in the first place. The series then continues with her starting middle school and continued adventures and issues growing up, many of them focused around her angst and feelings about her brother's substance abuse and its continued effects on her and their family, and changing friendships in middle school.
Books in the Series:
- Sunny Side Up: Sunny is sent to Florida to stay with her grandpa until Labor Day, in part because something's going on that Sunny doesn't want to talk about — her older brother Dale's substance abuse.
- Swing It, Sunny: Sunny starts middle school and is uncomfortable with the many changes that come with it, as well as her angst about Dale being away at Military School and his resentment at it, hoping he'll get better.
- Sunny Rolls the Dice: Sunny starts to worry about her friendship with Deb as they drift away from each other, in part because she starts playing Dungeons & Dragons with new friends and would rather embrace her nerdy ways.
- Sunny Makes a Splash: Summer comes around again and Sunny gets a job at the local pool's snack shack as well as her First Crush on a boy named Tony.
- Sunny Makes Her Case: Sunny creates — and joins — the middle school's debate team with Arun, one of her D&D friends.
The Sunny Series provides examples of:
- The '70s: The series starts in the middle of the decade; the plot of Sunny Side Up kicks off shortly after the Bicentennial in August 1976 (with some How We Got Here flashbacks of Sunny's previous year of fifth grade and early part of the summer) and continues to progress through the years.
- '70s Hair:
- Sunny gets her long hair cut at the start of the summer in Sunny Side Up to resemble Dorothy Hamill's iconic style, the Wedge. She hates it.
- Her older brother Dale has long mullet-like hair stereotypical of the era in Sunny Side Up. After he is sent to Military School to deal with his substance abuse problems, it gets cut short.
- Sunny Rolls the Dice has Sunny see winged hair like Farrah Fawcett in a teen fashion magazine and compares the wedge she's still trying to grow out. Deb has already had her hair cut into the feathered waves and rolls her hair nightly.
- Actually a Good Idea: Arun brings up the idea of a debate club over lunch with Sunny. Later, Sunny's mother argues with her that she needs an after-school hobby other than watching TV (in part because Dale not having any hobbies led to his hanging out with a bad crowd and getting into drugs). Sunny argues that she's never gotten in trouble and that Dale's straightened out anyways, and TV is doing something. Her mother offhandedly says she's really good at arguing. Sunny thinks about it, and the next day, tells Arun they should start debate team.
- Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: Dale — who has been abusing pot and alcohol the whole of Sunny Side Up — shows up wasted to the fireworks show on July 4th, gets into a fight with his father in front of his family and family friends, and tries to take a swing at his dad. When his little sister Sunny tries to intervene by standing between them, he accidentally hits her hard enough to leave a bruise on her shoulder. He then storms off angrily. His parents decide this is the last straw after a year of bad behavior and send him off to Military School to sober up and fix his act.
- Anyone Remember Pogs?: Being set in the 70s, the books mention a lot of fads and popular shows of the era. Sunny gets a fashionable haircut to resemble Dorothy Hamill's iconic style, the Wedge (but doesn't like it and spends the books afterwards growing it out). She and Deb mention the shampoo brand "Gee, Your Hair Smells Terrific"
, a brand popularized in the 1970s. The family watches shows like The Six Million Dollar Man, she weaves pot holders on a simple loop loom for presents, and she gets her brother Dale a Pet Rock as a Christmas gift (which he blows off at first, but later uses as a symbolic explanation of his feelings at being sent to and adjusting to Military School). The start of Sunny Rolls the Dice has her flipping through a teen magazine and comparing herself to "groovy" looks and trends like a lava lamp, beanbag chair, and various fashions. When her parents decide to refurbish their basement, her dad has her bring her old dolls up to her room to store until it's done, which include a Dusty doll, a doll who was shaped "realistically" (and so didn't fit in Barbie's clothing), which she and Deb try to do before ripping the item. She also watches the ABC Afterschool Special which gets a spotlight, and when debate club starts, one of the first debates involves her defending Bottle Caps candy, which were introduced in the decade. She and Gramps also go eat at Howard Johnson's, still an active restaurant chain, where Gramps orders Sanka. Her parents later throw a fondue party. - An Arm and a Leg:
- Sunny's (great-)uncle Danny lost one of his arms in a farm accident when he and her Gramps were kids. Gramps uses the story of how he had to struggle with his life changes to help Sunny process her angst about Dale's dealing with and overcoming his substance abuse.
- Dale discusses a a Vietnam vet he met after joining the army who lost a leg and was angry about it — in part because he was drafted in and felt there was no reason that America should have gotten involved in Vietnam and it wasn't America's war to fight in.
- Bathroom Stall of Angst: Sunny, while reading a The Incredible Hulk comic book she borrowed from Buzz's father in Sunny Side Up, remembers her older brother Dale getting nasty and angry over time because of his drug use and goes into the bathroom to cry.
- Bollywood Nerd: Sunny's friend Arun Patel is South Asian, plays D&D with her, and eventually starts the school's debate team with her. In Sunny Makes Her Case he complains that the school focuses heavily on sports, and gets teased in gym class for not catching a football where Sunny sees it while running track.
- A Boy, a Girl, and a Baby Family: Sunny's parents have three kids in her Nuclear Family: Her, her older brother Dale, and her younger brother Teddy. Dale is separated from the family for some time due to his substance abuse, which weighs emotionally on Sunny.
- Brains Versus Brawn: Discussed in Sunny Makes Her Case. Arun complains that the whole school is all about sports when it comes to competitions (and says his ideal school wouldn't even have a gym) and that there should be something else, like a debate club. This motivates him and Sunny to start one. It also comes up as their final debate topics during regionals, where the topic is "it's better to be successful in academics than sports" — and the Devon County Day school, which has won the last three years in a row picks to argue in the affirmative, forcing Arun and Sunny to debate that sports have their purpose. Sunny's able to successfully do so and they win the competition.
- Broken Pedestal: Sunny looked up to and cared deeply for her older brother Dale. Which is why she's so upset that his substance abuse resulted in him treating her poorly, expecting her to keep secrets, and even hitting her on accident in a drunken rage on the Fourth of July. She does not get over his actions easily and he's resentful after being sent to Military School to stop the problem. Sunny often wishes that he could just get better instantly—she says she misses him, but doesn't miss what he's like when he's there. She and her mother both have a good cry about it in his room when she confesses this. Things do improve; Dale finally starts to adapt to what military school is for him, becomes a Recovered Addict, and later joins the Navy.
- CallBack:
- When the newly formed debate team has their second place win announced in the morning announcements, two boys seated in front of her consider it news that they have one at all, to Sunny's irritation. After they take first in regionals, the same two boys still don't know they have a debate team.
- Sunny squints in the Polaroid picture with the second place trophy. She does the same in the newspaper picture with the winning trophy.
- Cannot Spit It Out: Tony struggles for several chapters in Sunny Makes Her Case to ask her out. At least twice he's denied by her having to do something else, including help out at a fondue party her parents are hosting. It takes Deb explaining things to Sunny for her to realize it. Finally he asks her after the regional debate competition, after she agrees to go see his hockey game.
- Change the Uncomfortable Subject:
- When Dale and their father are fighting over dinner in Sunny Side Up about him hanging out with a bad crowd, Sunny rapidly changes the subject to Pompeii, which she had just read about, and the fight ends.
- Sunny's mother absentmindedly mentions before dinner in Swing It, Sunny that Sunny should go tell her brother Dale to wash up; he's currently not there as he's been sent to Military School to resolve his drug abuse. She awkwardly says she's tired and drops the topic.
- Chekhov's Skill: In Sunny Side Up Sunny's brother Dale teaches her some driving skills while they're out buying milk for their mom and in part does this so she'll help cover up him buying drugs. When Myra, one of the residents of her grandpa's retirement community, wanders off due to her "confusion", Sunny grabs one of the community golf carts to help search for her faster than she and Buzz can walk around.
- Continuity Nod:
- Swing It, Sunny shows in her room the crochet doll that Teezy and Ethel gifted her in Sunny Side Up as well as the bicentennial celebration flag.
- Deb mentions Sunny's skill at swing flag from Swing It, Sunny in Sunny Makes Her Case to try and persuade her to try out for cheer.
- Conscription: Discussed, when Sunny has to debate about the draft for her first debate competition and asks her brother Dale and Gramps. Gramps explains that he doesn't think World War II would have been successful without it as there weren't enough soldiers and the outcome would have been dire if they'd lost. Dale, conversely, met a Vietnam vet who lost a leg and was angry about it because he felt there was no reason that America should have gotten involved in Vietnam and it wasn't America's war to fight in.
- Creepy Basement: Sunny goes into the basement to try and find her galoshes in Sunny Rolls the Dice and is disturbed by the sight of old toys and decorations down there. She finds her galoshes, though, in a box labeled "boots". Her parents soon decide to have it refurbished and it becomes where she and her new friends play D&D.
- Dad the Veteran: Gramps was drafted during World War II, as was his brother. When Sunny struggles to find anything affirmative about the draft, he explains that he doesn't think the war would have been successful without it as there weren't enough soldiers for both fronts.
- Disappointing Older Sibling: Sunny has felt let down by her brother Dale since he started using drugs, and her feelings about him, his actions, and his absence are complex, deep, and Played for Drama , especially because she looked up to him. He starts to improve after he adapts to the changes including his stint in Military School, gets off drugs and drinking, and enrolls in the Navy.
- Doting Grandparent: Gramps, Sunny's maternal grandfather. She and him get along wonderfully and he's her favorite old person. He also helps her talk through her complex feelings about her brother's substance abuse.
- Drugs Are Bad: Played for Drama. Sunny's older brother Dale starts smoking pot and drinking behind his parents' backs with two bad influence boys who are Delinquents, which makes him ill-tempered and nasty to them, and he pressures Sunny to keep the secret when she finds out. He fights over dinner, which Sunny tries to stop by talking about Pompeii. He, in a drunken fight with his father, hits Sunny during the Fourth of July fireworks on accident hard enough to bruise her — because she stepped in between them while he was swinging out in his drunken outburst. This last incident results in Dale getting sent off to Military School to clean up his act. Sunny blames herself for "getting him in trouble" and is shamed and embarrassed to the point that in Sunny Side Up she doesn't initially mention him to her new friend Buzz. Dale also doesn't get "cured" instantly and has to spend a good part of the next book, Swing It, Sunny, at Military School after flunking twelfth grade (and his absence is felt), and he's resentful that he's there at all and takes his upset out on his family, including her. It takes him some time to come to terms with things, but he becomes a Recovered Addict, and later enrolls in the Navy and is a much better person for it.
- First Love: Deb and Regina in Sunny Rolls the Dice both think Sunny's lab partner in biology, Tony, is "groovy" and she's lucky to have him as a lab partner. Sunny doesn't see what they see in him and has no feelings for him. She also is annoyed when a boy bumps into her all night at the roller rink and Deb and Regina say it's because he likes her. Sunny later gets her own first crush in Sunny Makes a Splash, but it's on her own schedule.
- Foreshadowing:
- Sunny reads about volcano eruptions, particularly Pompeii, for a school project in Sunny Side Up, and uses it to Change the Uncomfortable Subject when her father and older brother Dale are fighting at dinner one night. When she finally loses her temper at Gramps continuing to smoke during her visit later in the book, there's a scene of an erupting volcano in her vision for a second before she rants about everything that's upset her recently including her brother Dale and his drug abuse.
- Sunny stops a fight between her father and older brother Dale over dinner by talking suddenly about Pompeii in Sunny Side Up. She tries to intervene between them again on the Fourth of July in the same book, and this time Dale is so drunk and belligerent he swings out and hits her on accident in the process.
- In Swing It, Sunny, Deb is not pleased at the idea of being Swamp Thing for Halloween — she doesn't know who he is and isn't interested when Sunny explains — and instead wants to be nurses after watching General Hospital. Sunny also fumbles with makeup when they play dress up, which she's not fond of. By the time of Sunny Rolls the Dice Deb and Sunny have gone on different friend paths with Deb interested in boys, fads and fashion, and makeup and dismissive of Sunny's interests including playing Dungeons and Dragons with boys. Sunny tries to stay connected to Deb but eventually embraces her geeky ways and she and Deb go their separate ways as friends, though they later connect again.
- Sunny has to study both sides of the debate on the draft and initially can't find a positive side, which Gramps provides. For the final round of their first competition, she's pulled to argue for the affirmative, and her talks with Gramps influence her talk.
- As part of their spontaneous topic practice, Mr. Roy has the debate team pick a random topic: keeping animals in zoos. Come their debate tournament, and that's the exact topic picked for their first debate.
- Sunny starts Sunny Makes Her Case by looking wistfully into the school trophy case. By the end, she's added one to it for debate team.
- Flashback Cut: These are throughout the first two books along with full Flashbacks, with Sunny remembering both good and unpleasant events around her older brother Dale and how his drug problem affected their relationship. She felt him telling her to cover it up was having to keep secrets for him and resulted in her feeling badly about him falling out of grace with her.
- Flowers of Romance: In Sunny Rolls the Dice, Valentine's Day involves buying carnations for others and having them delivered. Deb gets several. Sunny only gets one which she later learns was from Deb, and her D&D friends don't get the point of the carnations at all.
- Founding Day: Sunny Side Up covers the United States Bicentennial in 1976. Sunny's family and friends attend patriotic celebrations that day (as they live in Valley Forge, PA) and that night attend a picnic and cookout. Things go terribly wrong during the fireworks when her substance-abusing older brother Dale shows up late and drunk and, when fighting with their father, accidentally hits Sunny hard enough to bruise her when she tries to stand between them to stop the fighting.
- Free Prize at the Bottom: In Sunny Side Up, Sunny takes down a box of Corn Flakes that says there's a toy inside while at her Gramps. She dumps the whole box to get it only to find a pack of cigarettes and no toy; Gramps is hiding them all around the house, as he's been told to stop smoking (but hasn't quit yet).
- Grumpy Old Man: One of the elderly men at the retirement community in Sunny Side Up is this. His first statement to Sunny is not to get eaten (not mentioning the local alligator, Big Al), and when Sunny tries to play Marco Polo in the pool, he states sharply that "Marco" died recently of a heart attack. He even complains about nearby Disney World, calling it a tourist trap.
- Halloween Episode:
- One of the chapters in Swing it, Sunny, focuses on Halloween. She and her best friend Deb dress up as nurses (though Sunny wanted to be Swamp Thing) and go trick-or-treating until their bags are full. When they see two kids steal candy from a smaller kid, they hide in a pile of leaves and scare them.
- By the time of Sunny Rolls the Dice, Deb thinks seventh grade is Too Old to Trick-or-Treat and wear costumes and it's more mature to stay home handing out candy. Sunny does so with her, but hates it.
- In Sunny Makes Her Case she dresses up as a lawyer and takes Teddy trick-or-treating for their mom — and invites Tony to come along with them.
- High-School Dance: Middle School. In Sunny Rolls the Dice Sunny attends her first dance, the Spring Fling, and wears a nice dress she picked out at the mall with Deb and Regina and styles her hair. But the dance is awkward with the boys standing nervously on one side of the gym and the girls on the other. She wanders the halls until she finds her D&D friends playing — also avoiding the dance — and joins in with them, having a much better time.
- Hippie Name: Sunny's full first name is Sunshine. She says it's because her mother "liked hippies".
- Hope Spot:
- In Sunny Side Up, Gramps mentions that the "girls" are visiting, and Sunny is excited that other kids are visiting. They're two old ladies, Teezy and Ethel. She later meets the groundskeeper's son, Buzz, and has someone her own age to spend time with.
- Again in Sunny Side Up: Gramps says the first several days that he has big plans for the day. Sunny first hopes this is Disney World, but it's instead trips to the grocery store, bank, and post office. Her last days in Florida, he actually takes her, Buzz, and three other residents of his community to Disney World for the day.
- How We Got Here: Sunny Side Up starts with Sunny on the plane to Florida to spend part of her summer vacation with her grandpa, before showing why she went there by herself without the rest of her family. The truth is her parents have sent her to stay with him while they face the issues of her older brother Dale's drug addiction, since it won't be pretty and they don't want her to get hurt again.
- Imagine Spot:
- The series briefly and frequently flashes asides of various items, with Sunny's commentary around them. These include her grandpa's car Bertha, technology of the era, comic book characters, and then-current TV shows, to inform readers of an era they don't know much about. Some also reveal her mental state about things going on around her.
- The opening of Swing It, Sunny has her picturing a TV show Title Sequence, The Sunny Show, with her family and friends around her including the alligator from her Grandpa's retirement community. There's a blacked out spot that represents Dale. She continues to imagine the show until she's pulled out of it by her mom, who asks her to change her younger brother Teddy's diaper. She also imagines her family as The Brady Bunch, but Dale is in blackout again.
- Sunny Rolls the Dice has Sunny start to integrate D&D thoughts in her head: she remembers to check for "traps" at school, and pictures the cafeteria jello as a gelatinous cube.
- I Need to Go Iron My Dog: In Sunny Rolls the Dice, Deb calls out of their weekly D&D session by saying she's going to go do "a thing" with her mom. Sunny later sees her coming home from Valentine's Day shopping with her new friend Regina. Deb drops playing soon after, saying they're too old to play games "like that."
- Informed Judaism: Lev, one of Sunny's new friends in Sunny Rolls the Dice, gets D&D figures for Hanukkah. He also is seen wearing a kippah.
- It's All My Fault: Sunny blames herself for hiding her brother's drug issues by not speaking up, and thinks this — along with her "causing him problems" because he hit her in a drunken accident on the Fourth of July — is why she was "sent away" to Florida. Her grandpa assures her this isn't the case.
- Keeping Secrets Sucks: Sunny feels like this in Sunny Side Up because she's tired of keeping her feelings hidden. It all comes out in an outburst — that the fold out bed is uncomfortable, that her grandpa hasn't stopped smoking when he said he would, and that she feels it's her fault for what's going on with her brother Dale's substance abuse — including guilt at not speaking up about it before, and that his hitting her on the fourth of July was her making things worse for him. Her grandpa assures her it is certainly not her fault that Dale's behavior has changed and not her responsibility for making him better.
- Lovable Jock: Tony has been playing ice hockey since he was five; he loves it and feels better on the ice than in school, where he has to work hard just to get B's and C's.
- Ludicrous Gift Request: Minor. Sunny asks for a kitten but can't have one since her little brother Teddy is allergic. Her parents jokingly get her a stuffed one for a gift in Sunny Rolls the Dice — followed by something she really wants, a D&D player's book.
- Mailbox Baseball: Sunny comes out on New Year's Day 1977 to see that every mailbox on the block including her family's has been knocked over. She wonders why anyone would do this, and suspects her brother Dale is part of it along with his crowd of misbehaving friends, who she saw him leave with.
- Meaningful Echo: Twice in Sunny Rolls the Dice.
- After Sunny forgets to check for a trap during a session of D&D and is stung by poisoned needles, Brian reminds her to always check for traps. She remembers this through her next day at school and avoids spilled soda on a bus seat and a smelly pinny top in gym class — and also hits her head on the top shelf of her locker while inspecting it.
- During one of their first D&D sessions, the group fails to look up while walking a dark hallway and is attacked by a giant spider; Arun, the Game Master, warns them to always look up for things. Later at the awkward Spring Fling dance, she sees her friends Lev, Brian, and Arun playing impromptu D&D in the hallway and she yells for them to look up — and again, Aran has hidden a giant spider on the ceiling. She joins them for the rest of the dance and they have a much better time talking D&D.
- Middle School Is Miserable: Swing It, Sunny has Sunny start middle school, which she doesn't like — there's math tests, boring teachers, the Gym Class Rope Climb, and terrible cafeteria food. When asked if she's learned anything by her Gramps, she remembers seeing the track and field images from past years which include her older brother Dale, who has fallen out of grace with her due to his substance abuse. She later finds attending the Spring Fling awkward in Sunny Rolls the Dice.
- Military School: Dale is sent to one of these, Merion Boys' Academy, after his substance abuse problems become too much for the family to handle. He's unhappy to be there and lashes out at his family for it when they pick him up to visit over Thanksgiving and Christmas, but eventually comes around, reforms, and enrolls in the Navy.
- Moment Killer: Sunny and Tony are sitting up in the stands watching the football game, and Tony is about to (for the second time) ask her to go on a date, when Sunny's dad — who has purchased several hoagies — shows up, plunks right between them, and offers Tony a hoagie with extra onions. The moment is ruined.
- Must Have Nicotine: Gramps has been told to stop smoking for his health, but has hidden packs of cigarettes all around his home and is still smoking. Sunny gets frustrated and yells at him for it and breaks down due to her issues regarding her brother and his own substance abuse. Before she leaves Florida, Gramps gathers all his hidden cigarettes up and throws them into the trash.
- Needlework Is for Old People: Teezy and Ethel, two old ladies at her Gramps retirement community, gift Sunny a crocheted toilet paper doll while she's visiting in Florida.
- Never Smile at a Crocodile: The golf course water hazard at Pine Palms has a large green alligator living in it, Big Al. Sunny is startled by him while trying to gather golf balls in Sunny Side Up and later when a resident, Myra, wanders off, Sunny worries that Big Al may have got her. In Swing It, Sunny she first thinks he's passed before Gramps explains that he meant his neighbor Al had died, and he later gets taken away by animal rescue to Sunny's distress as she feels he harmed no one.
- Oblivious to Love: Sunny has no idea at first that Tony is trying to ask her out on a date, partially because he Cannot Spit It Out. Once Deb informs her, she's shocked to learn that's what he was doing since he didn't say so directly. Deb then tells her not to do anything, because Sunny asking him out would make him nervous.
- Old People are Nonsexual: Sunny sees her Gramps flirt with the lady that takes her picture for her visitor's pass in Sunny Side Up and makes a disgusted face about it. He later gets involved with a lady his age, Myrtle, and Sunny makes a face when Dale brings up the idea they might kiss.
- Period Piece: The series was published starting in the 2010s but is set in the mid to late 1970s.
- Potty Failure: Teddy, who is old enough for potty training by Sunny Rolls the Dice, has one while she's not paying attention to him during her D&D game with friends and she has to pause to clean him up.
- Proud to Be a Geek: Sunny starts off the series by embracing comic books with her new friend Buzz in Florida in Sunny Side Up, deciding that Swamp Thing is her favorite character of them all. Sunny Rolls the Dice has the plot of her joining up and playing Dungeons & Dragons with new friends in middle school, leading to her eventual drifting away from her Childhood Friend Deb (who is more interested in fashion and boys).
- Recovered Addict: Sunny's brother Dale is addicted to pot and alcohol, causing him to hang with a bad group of two other boys, lie to his mother about where he's been, and get in fights with his parents. After his outburst on the Fourth of July where he hits Sunny in a drunken accident when she tries to stand between him and their dad, he gets shipped off to Military School to clean up his act. He's resentful and bitter at first and even returns to spending time with his old friends, but starts to come around and recover, in part because he doesn't have much choice. By the start of Sunny Rolls the Dice he's cleaned up enough he's enrolled in the Navy.
- Suburbia:
- Sunny lives in one in Valley Forge, PA, with her parents, older brother Dale, and younger baby brother Teddy. However for a large part of the series, Dale is away at Military School dealing with his substance abuse problems and then enrolls in the Navy.
- Pine Palms, the 55 and over retirement community that Gramps lives in. Sunny has to carry a visitor's pass at all times and in order to use the pool, because no kids or pets are allowed to live there. (The old ladies still have lots of cats, though, and Sunny and Buzz end up earning money finding them around the community.)
- Scatterbrained Senior: One of the residents of Pine Palms, Myra, is 98 years old and forgetful; Sunny and Buzz are recruited to find her when she's wandered off again. Sunny finds her sitting on a bench waiting to go back to Hoboken, New Jersey, where she says her late husband Mickey will be waiting for her. She's sad to be reminded she lives in Florida now.
- Shadow Discretion Shot: Used twice, and then revealed for later impact in Sunny Side Up.
- When Sunny sees lighters on sale at the store she and Buzz buy comics at, she remembers a quick Flashback Cut of a hand around a lighter. This is later revealed to be a memory of when she went to go find Dale for dinner and found him smoking under a bridge with his two bad-influence friends, and Dale told her to say she didn't see anything.
- While eating dinner with Gramps, Teezy and Ethel, Teezy asks Sunny about the Bicentennial celebration in Valley Forge and if there were fireworks. Sunny has a Flashback Cut of what appears to be her sitting on the grass enjoying the night's fireworks with people standing around her, and she says yes. It's many chapters later where this is revealed to not be a pleasant memory; that night her brother Dale showed up drunk after being gone all day and got into a fight with their father, then accidentally hit Sunny hard enough she was bruised before storming off.
- Shout-Out: Mostly to fads, pop culture, and shows of the era to help set the books as a Period Piece and Historical Fiction.
- Sunny Rolls the Dice is about Sunny starting to play and enjoy Dungeons & Dragons with new friends.
- Sunny reads several comic books, including Superman, Batman, The Incredible Hulk, and Spider-Man. Her favorite is Swamp Thing and later her father introduces her to Prince Valiant.
- Her grandpa asks about some movie about a shark that came out last year, Jaws.
- Sunny watches various era-relevant TV shows. She watches General Hospital at Deb's house, which gives Deb the idea to be nurses for Halloween. The family watches The Six Million Dollar Man one night (and Sunny pictures her brother getting "improved" like Col. Steven Austin), and she is watching The Brady Bunch with Deb when she's worried about her brother Dale and that he possibly could be behind the recent Mailbox Baseball. While watching Gilligan's Island, Sunny worries she and Deb do nothing but watch TV, but Deb says they've got four channels and UHF, which leaves tons of things to watch and there's not enough hours in the day for everything.
- Sunny imagines performing songs with her brother the way Donny and Marie Osmond do.
- A van painted like the Mystery Machine is seen in the background on the way home from picking Gramps up from the airport in Sunny Rolls the Dice.
- Sunny imagines herself on a Expy version of The Price Is Right before she gets run into while in school.
- Thing-O-Meter: Sunny spends a lot of Sunny Rolls the Dice picturing an internal "Groovy Meter" (based on one she saw in a teen magazine quiz), a mental measure of how well she's fitting in with her Childhood Friend Deb and new friend Regina and the new "rules" of seventh grade that make her cool or not. The levels of what are "groovy" frequently means Sunny shouldn't do a lot of things she wants to do — like go trick-or-treating and play D&D with her new friends — and should do a lot of things she doesn't care about like have crushes on boys and worry about fashion and looks. As Deb puts down things Sunny likes, she pictures her meter going down, and then up when she gets little signs of being "groovy," but she's not comfortable with most of what's expected. She finally mentally crosses the whole meter out when Deb talks about buying expensive jeans for them (to share) again and tells Deb she spent her money on what she wanted: a D&D Figure of her fighter character. Dropping her mental Groovy Meter is the last sign of her and Deb drifting apart as friends as Sunny embraces her geeky side and goes back to playing D&D with her new friends.
- Title Drop:
- As Sunny is headed home after her trip to Florida, her grandpa tells her to keep her "sunny side up" before she boards the plane.
- Neela, her new neighbor, tells her to "swing it, Sunny!" when she's performing the flag twirling Neela taught her for her family and friends.
- Too Old to Trick-or-Treat: Deb says this when Sunny asks about their Halloween costume plans that year in Sunny Rolls the Dice, because they're in seventh grade. She instead suggests they stay home and hand out candy. Sunny finds it boring.
- Toxic Friend Influence: Dale starts hanging with two Delinquent boys his senior year of high school that get him involved in substance abuse; their mother complains about that Sladek boy being "no good" when he sneaks off to get milk and he blows it off by saying he took Sunny for ice cream. His drinking and pot smoking become a legitimate problem that results in him being shipped off to Military School after he accidentally drunkenly hits his sister Sunny, which he resents. When he's supposed to stay at home on New Year's Eve 1976 with Sunny and Deb (and his baby brother Teddy), he instead runs off with the other two boys that night and possibly gets involved in knocking over the block's mailboxes. This is all played out realistically and Sunny has lots of angst about it, even being upset when she sees the two boys driving by while Dale is at military school and remembering how their actions with Dale lead to what's going on with him. By the time of Sunny Rolls the Dice he has dropped them and enrolled in the Navy, and so is nowhere near them anymore.
- Training Montage: While not sports related, there are several chapters of Sunny and Arun learning how to do formal debate before their first competition.
- Tropey, Come Home: The elderly ladies of Gramps' retirement community in Sunny Side Up have cats (even though there's not supposed to be any pets) and when they get out and lost, Sunny and her friend Buzz help find them using tuna fish.
- Unnamed Parent: Sunny's parents names are never said. Avoided with Sunny's grandpa; his full name is Patrick Hearn.
- We Used to Be Friends: The major plot thread of Sunny Rolls the Dice. Deb and Sunny, after still being Childhood Friends through the first two books, start to drift apart. Deb starts having interest in more "mature" and "groovy" with things like crushes on boys, fashion fads, makeup, and teen magazines. Meanwhile Sunny, with her love of comic books, still wants to dress up for Halloween (while Deb thinks they're Too Old to Trick-or-Treat) and finds fun in playing Dungeons & Dragons with her new friends Lev, Brian, and Arun. Deb initially plays but finds D&D boring; she calls it a game the "boys" play later when they're hanging out with new friend Regina, makes a weak excuse to skip one session, and drops out later on by saying she's too "old" to play games. Sunny briefly tries to stay connected to Deb and even quits D&D to try and hold on to her friendship, but reunites with the others at their awkward middle school dance where she has more fun with them than at the dance proper. The two finally go their separate ways when, instead of continuing to save her money to split a pair of Gloria Vanderbilt jeans with Deb, Sunny buys the fighter figurine she wants, and Deb reacts with silence when she sees this. Sunny embraces her geeky ways and returns to playing D&D. They start to be friends again by the time of Sunny Makes Her Case, but it's not the same level of closeness like before as they've both made new friends.
- Worthless Foreign Degree: Buzz's father, a Cuban immigrant, was a chemist in Cuba before he left during the Cuban Revolution. In the US since he has no papers, he's the groundskeeper for Pine Palms instead.
