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Anonymous (1971). Go Ask Alice. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.

 

A classic of American teen literature, this book chronicles the life of a young girl whose downfall comes from unknowingly drinking a soda laced with LSD, enjoying it, and pursuing it with vigor. Attempts to quit end in failure, and her ultimate death. Supposedly an autobiographical account written in the form of a dairy, it seems likely this book was written by an adult for teens in an effort to scare them away from drugs; the writing is not typical of how a teen would write, act or speak even for the time, but seems to be more adult in flavor.

 

Deborah Diliberto, Fall 2008

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Alshalabi, F. (1999). Summer of 1990. Boulder, CO: Aunt Strawberry Books.

In the Summer of 1990, Danah, a thirteen year old Middle Eastern girl, takes a trip to visit her Uncle Faisal and his wife in the United States.  She feels angry and left out because her older sister, Amani, is preparing for marriage and seems to be getting all of the attention.  This trip cures Danah’s teenage angst, but not for typical reasons like going to Disneyworld.  They find out about the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, which makes Danah realize what a difficult teenager she has been lately, and she feels remorse.  She experiences a lot of anxiety, unsure if she will ever see her family again.  When Danah finds out that Kuwaitis have safe refuge in Saudi Arabia, she goes to live with her Uncle Usama hoping to find her family again.  Danah is forced to wear an abaya for the first time, because she would not be safe without one in public in Saudi Arabia or Kuwait.  After she is reunited with her family she helps the resistance against the Iraqis.  This story authentically shows the tumultuous nature of the sociopolitical power struggles in the Middle East, and how the devastation of war torn countries affect its people.  This book will help teens to understand and feel compassion for Middle Eastern people all over the world and their struggle to survive. 

Theodora Rudolph, 12-12-08 

Perkins, M. (1993). The Not-So-Star-Spangled Life of Sunita Sen. New York: Little

            Brown and Company.

The Not-So-Star-Spangled Life of Sunita Sen captures the tumultuous times of a multicultural teen’s life, and the conflicts Sunita faces having two identities, American and Indian.  Sunni is a typical American teen in many ways, but when her grandparents from India come to stay with her family she becomes aware of the fact that she has a multicultural identity.  While she loves her grandparents, as an awkward teen she is extremely self-conscious of any noticeable differences between herself and her peers.  Authenticity is shown in Sunita’s conflicted identity, “People like the Morrisons and Schaeffers were made of apple pie and country clubs and stained glass windows and pot roast.  The Sens were made of chicken curry and sarees and sitar music and incense”  (Perkins, 1993, p. 83).  Perkins writing depicts a true portrait of how conflicted Sunita feels when she just wants to fit in and not be noticed for being unique.  Sunita’s best friend, Liz, helps her understand that others truly love Sunita and her family, and appreciate the rich traditions and cultural experiences that enrich the lives of all who know them in their community.  Sunita also shares a special bond with her affirming and nurturing grandfather, Dadu.  Dadu seems to know just how to heal Sunita’s heart by gently tending her young conflicted spirit through poetry, kind words, and unconditional love while he teaches Sunita how to take care of herself.  Sunita develops a sense of cultural pride through her relationships with her grandparents, family, and friends and begins to celebrate the beauty of being a young Indian American woman.

Theodora Rudolph, 12-12-08 

Talbot, Byron (1995).  The Tale of One Bad Rat.  Milwaukee, OR:  Dark Horse Comics

This graphic novel tells the tale of Helen Potter, a teenage runaway and victim of sexual abuse by her father.   She begs in the Underground stations of London, and lives with other teenage squatters in an abandoned building.  Though tortured by her past, Helen enjoys drawing, loves animals, and dreams of following in the footsteps of Beatrix Potter.  When a cat kills her beloved pet rat, Helen hitchhikes to the author's home in the Lake Country.   Helen's horrific childhood memories, visions of suicide, and sexual assaults by men are depicted in dark, unnatural colors.  The story's setting changes to more cheerful and natural hues when Helen finally makes it to the town where Beatrix Potter lived, and finds reasons for happiness and peace of mind.

Katrina Bergen  May 3, 2007

Hinton, S.E. (1971). That Was Then, This Is Now. New York: Viking Press.

Most of us know that the late ‘60s, early ‘70s was a tumultuous time for everyone, especially teenagers, whose lives were probably already crazy enough!  This was the time when the clean, preppy conformity machine of 1950s high school life broke open like an ill-fitting straight jacket.  Sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll rampant, political change imminent all around - it was easy to get swept up in the excitement.  To anyone from Generation X or Y, this era is boiled down to chapters in textbooks and stories told by those who lived through it.  This particular story, written by then 20-year-old Hinton (The Outsiders), tells of rebellion, friendship, loss, and coming of age and finding yourself in a time when society seems to be lost. 

-Jeanie Miller - May 5, 2007

Fleischman, Paul. (1998).  Whirligig.  1998.  Random House: New York. 

Brent is 16 years old and has just moved into a new community and school.  He feels awkward and out of place.  The social culture of his high school is cliquish, and cold and his parents are in their own world, barely noticing him as he deals with his insecurities and fears.  As an attempt to fit in, he goes to a party with a boy he can barely stand, and meets up with kids who barely tolerate him.  He is anxiously and totally focused on impressing one very popular girl.   The reader winces when he tries to talk to her as he has done many times at school, and her loud response, in front of all the cool and popular kids, is a stinging, mortifying rejection.

 

Brent decides to kill himself by crashing his car.   Instead he ends up killing the driver of another car, an 18 year old girl named Lea.   As penance, her mother asks Brent to make and plant a whirligig (one of Lea’s favorite toys) in the four corners of theUnited States – Seattle, San Diego, Tampa, and Maine.   Though his parents try to dissuade him, he boards a bus with a second hand book with instructions for making whirligigs.

 

On the trip Brent learns to identify constellations and play harmonica.  He meets and engages with people who are very different from the judgmental and self-conscious kids at his high school.   Most important is his mastery of the carpentry and art of making whirligigs:  ”What he knew without question was that it felt good to be busy toiling in atonement, to direct his feelings outward through his arms and knife as if draining an abscess.”   This is a great story of transformation and redemption.

 

Katrina Bergen, April 18, 2007

Burgess, Melvin. (1996). Smack. New York: Henry Holt & Co.

The chilling story of teenagers and young adults who leave home in England in the 1980s to join the burgeoning squatter movement. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this leads them quickly to heroin, and the story that ensues is powerful partly because it presents the reasons heroin is so very addictive -- and partly because it emphasizes the dangers and scariness of the drug itself. And interesting take on the feisty YA narrating voice -- at first the alternating speakers seem plucky and smart -- later we see how they have fooled both us and themselves. A cautionary tale that avoids preaching and allows teens to make their own judgements.

Elizabeth McMunn 4/1/2007

Gibbons, K. (1997). Ellen Foster. Chapel Hill: Algonquin Books.

 

Most of us know that the late ‘60s, early ‘70s was a tumultuous time for everyone, especially teenagers, whose lives were probably already crazy enough!  This was the time when the clean, preppy conformity machine of 1950s high school life broke open like an ill-fitting straight jacket.  Sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll rampant, political change imminent all around - it was easy to get swept up in the excitement.  To anyone from Generation X or Y, this era is boiled down to chapters in textbooks and stories told by those who lived through it.  This particular story, written by then 20-year-old Hinton (The Outsiders), focuses on best friends Bryon and Mark as they struggle on the verge of adulthood.  It’s a book about rebellion, friendship, and coming of age and somehow finding your own way in a time when society seems to be lost. 

 

-Jeanie Miller, 9 April 2007

 

 

Revoya, N. The Necessary Hunger. (1997). New York: Simon & Schuster.

Nancy Takahiro enters her senior year a neighborhood hero, known for being a star high-school basketball player in South-Central Los Angeles. She has had a crush on Raina, an out lesbian player for another high school’s team, for years, and can’t believe it when her dad falls in love with Raina’s mother. Raina and her mom move in with Nancy and her father, and Nancy’s feelings become deeper and more complicated the more she gets to know her new housemate. Revoya grasps the intricacies of young love and friendship as innately as she does the play-by-play basketball games Nancy and Raina live for. She weaves the experiences of a Japanese American lesbian and her mostly African American friends into a sentimental story of moving through life’s chapters, and embracing relationships for what they are, not what we wish they could be.

-Rachel Bernstein, March 22, 2007

When eleven year old Ellen's mother dies, Ellen is left in the hands of her crazy drunk father. She suffers abuse and negelect. Ellen dreams of living with a family she watches from afar. She learns they are a foster family and mistakenly thinks foster is the family's last name. Ellen is funny, observant and determined to get herself some of the family-love she observes in the Foster family. Ellen Foster is a wonderful story, concise and engaging.

Annette Counts, November 25, 2006

 

 

Cormier, R. (1998). Heroes. New York, NY: Delacorte Press.

After three years of fighting the war, 18 year-old Francis returns from the battlefield of WWII to receive a Sliver Medal, However, he was reduced to become a faceless man as his face was blown off by a gernade when he tried to save his fellow soldiers. Francis comes back with a mission, however, to kill the person that he used to admire. As he searches for his target, the truth of his past slowly reveals itself. As it turned out, he threw himself onto the gernade not because of his bravery, but because he wanted to kill himself. The same author of The Chocolate War once again proves himself as a serious writer by developing a story that leaves the readers to re-evaluate the true meaning of heroism. A good read for all teens. 

Mark Lee, 21 November, 2006

Anderson, L. H. (1999). Speak. New York: Penguin Putnam Books.

Melinda broke a taboo. She called the cops on a party at the end of summer. Now she is starting her freshman year of high school and no one will talk to her. But her friends don't know what really happened to her. "Older students are allowed to roam until the bell, but ninethgraders are herded into the auditorium. We fall into clans: Jocks, Country Clubbers, Idiot Savants, Cheerleaders, Human Waste, Eurotrash, Future Fascists of the America, Big Hair Chix, the Marthas, Suffering Artists, Thespians, Goths, Shredders. I am clanless. I wasted the last weeks of August watching bad cartoons. I didn't go to the mall, the lake, or the pool, or answer the phone. I have entered high school with the wrong hair, the wrong clothes, the wrong attitude. And I don't have anyone to sit with (p.4)." Laurie Halse Anderson has written a dark tale that will bring tears to your eyes even as it make you LOL. She brings the angst of high school together with a taut tale of a young teen who has carefully constructed a safe place to be in her own head and if she lets go she will be forced to speak the truth.

 Lynn Mccormick 16, November 2006

 

• Comier, R.  (1974).  The Chocolate War.  Dell Laurel-Leaf.  ISBN 0440944597.               

  The Chocolate War is a bleak study of the dark side of human nature.  Using a private boys' school as a metaphore for society in general, author Robert Comier takes the reader into a world where manipulation, cruelty and power for its own sake are the ultimate goals.  Freshman Jerry Renault becomes the unwitting opponent to a secret society, known as the Vigils, when he refuses to sell boxes of chocolate to raise funds for the school.  Jerry's initial disguest at the acts of the Vigils and the teachers who run the school is ultimately beaten down, physical and mentally, as he is first hailed as a hero by his fellow students then eventually becoming their victim.  The Chocolate Warcontains some excellent writing, but many of its characters are underdeveloped and unrealistic.  The psychological and societal elements of the book are well written, but the characters fail to come to life in a manner that an average person can relate to.    

 Laura Fleek, 27 September 2006   

Paulsen, G. (1987)  Hatchet

Hatchet is the story of Brian Robertson, a thirteen year old boy that gets stranded in the Canadian wilderness. Brian’s story definitely revolves around man versus nature, and in most stories of that genera Brian does learn to survive but he also learns more about himself. As he says in the end of the book, the experience changed him. It made him stronger and much more aware of himself and his surroundings. He also learns to live with the secret that has been bothering him. This book comes highly recommend from the author of this review and also from Newbary .

Hatchet Gary Paulsen Los Angeles, CA : Library Reproduction Service, 2000, c1987.

Daniel Gaghan- May 17, 2007