A practical, thought-provoking primer to help teens make more informed decisions about pot smoking.
A youth counselor offers a roundup of information and prompts for teens considering or already smoking pot in this YA self-help guide.
Aronoff, a licensed mental health counselor who has worked with youth at risk for over 20 years, believes it’s time to get real about marijuana. The drug is widely available, is becoming increasingly legalized, and “[b]eing a curious teen is normal.” In this guide, Aronoff provides the lowdown on how to “smoke smart,” noting that “[b]ecause some people will thrive and get ahead in life while occasionally smoking pot, and others will not, knowing how to smoke smart is essential.” He presents a series of short chapters covering multiple topics—peer pressure, pot vs. alcohol, pot-smoking parents and addiction—to help teens decide if, where, how and how much they should become involved in pot smoking. He considers the “how” a particularly key factor, emphasizing that how pot is smoked significantly affects addiction risk. The title of this work is reflective of his “harm reduction” philosophy, with Aronoff suggesting those who chose to smoke should take the “one toke challenge,” since “you do not need more than one toke to get high.” While not all parents will love Aronoff’s open-minded views about a drug that they would simply ban, his guide serves as a nonthreatening vehicle by which teens can actively assess the realities of its presence in their lives. Aronoff’s counseling background is a particular strength of this narrative; he continually connects this decision to having awareness and accountability for all of one’s choices in life. He also ends each chapter with a helpful “Voice Your Opinion” question for teens to ponder. His website, onetoke.org, which he promotes as a place to “also connect with others,” offers additional information. Additionally, while this slim book attempts to distill a lot of information, teens and parents would do well to consult other resources to fully understand this complex, controversial subject.
A practical, thought-provoking primer to help teens make more informed decisions about pot smoking.Pub Date: Oct. 10, 2014
ISBN: 978-1630410209
Page Count: 114
Publisher: Porter House
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
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