A breezy guide for fostering a happy adolescence by maneuvering its challenges and pitfalls.
Advice for tweens and teens on building healthy relationships and avoiding toxic ones.
Zucker uses brief stories involving middle school students to illustrate social power, or the dynamic between peers. When this becomes unbalanced, the resulting shift in power can be mild or extreme, resulting in stress, belittling, and even bullying. However, when it’s balanced there’s mutual respect and generosity. With this foundation in place, the author moves on to offer examples of balanced and unbalanced interactions told in dialogue bubbles and from there, advice and examples. Individual chapters tackle concepts like assertiveness, self-confidence, self-control, the unique problems presented by social media, and strategies for repairing unhealthy interactions. These often include concise checklists. In the penultimate chapter, readers are reminded to nurture positive thinking, which takes practice, and are given concrete strategies. Finally, the book wraps up with information about cultivating resilience. Zucker’s advice lands best when accompanied by dramatizations or by the stories of individual teens who have succeeded by following her guidelines. The lively design, including playful illustrations, makes for accessible reading, with ideas unpacked into digestible pieces. Some concepts may be too abstract for younger readers, who may require help from adults to understand and implement them. The extensive list of resources that concludes the book has recommended reading lists for both caregivers and young people.
A breezy guide for fostering a happy adolescence by maneuvering its challenges and pitfalls. (bibliography) (Nonfiction. 11-14)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-4338-3814-9
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Magination/American Psychological Association
Review Posted Online: July 12, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
As in their previous collaborations (Colors of Freedom, Voices of Rape, not reviewed), Bode and Mack portray an issue through the voices of children and adults affected by it. Bode (recently deceased) interviewed preteens, their parents, and adult experts, and organized their responses into parts "For Girls and Boys" and "For Parents." In sections with titles like "Public Recognition" or "What's in Your Heart," her text, addressed directly to the reader, synthesizes many of the responses in a way that should comfort and challenge young and adult readers. At least half of the book is comprised of responses she gathered from her survey, some of which are illustrated in strips by Mack. The result is an engagingly designed book, with questions and topics in bold type so that readers can browse for the recognition they may be looking for. They will need to browse, as there is no index, and young readers will certainly be tempted by the "For Parents" section, and vice versa. A bibliography (with two Spanish titles) and list of Web resources (with mostly live links) will help them seek out more information. They may well have other questions—especially having to do with parents' sexuality—which they don't find answered here, but this is a fine and encouraging place to start. (print and on-line resources) (Non-fiction. 9-13)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-689-81945-5
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
As an overview of global conflict, it’s concise and accessible—remarkably so—but as a call to individual action, it’s less...
A penetrating look into the roots of global conflict, the many ways it can begin and possible resolutions.
Attempting to answer the question “Why do we fight?” is ambitious from the start. Following a natural arc by explaining different types of conflict and then contemplating ways conflict can escalate, Walker touches on topics that could each have their own book. However, she keeps the pace lively and the flow of information smooth. Preteen readers may anticipate finding solutions to conflicts in their everyday life, but instead, the focus is on global issues: fighting over natural resources, culture clashes, religious beliefs, etc. Underlying parallels to personal practice can certainly be drawn, but it is not the ultimate purpose of this work. Designed in a visual, infographic style with bold headlines and a sharp yellow, black and white color scheme, the sunny layout provides structure and bounce to a dense topic. In a concluding chapter entitled “What do YOU think?” Walker encourages readers to use their newfound knowledge and tolerance to become global activists. A laudable goal, but directions to getting involved with organizations such as UNICEF’s Voices of Youth or Amnesty International would have been appreciated.
As an overview of global conflict, it’s concise and accessible—remarkably so—but as a call to individual action, it’s less successful. (sources, index, author’s note) (Nonfiction. 11-14)Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-926973-86-9
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Owlkids Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 13, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2013
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