TRUST AND BETRAYAL (Laurel-Leaf Books) - Softcover

Bode, Janet

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0440220351 ISBN 13: 9780440220350

Publisher: Laurel Leaf, 1996

Synopsis

Teenagers talk about their best friends, worst enemies, and the importance of peer acceptance, offering young adult readers advice on how to deal with fitting in and making the right choices about friendships. Reprint.

About this title

From Booklist:

Gr. 7-12. Even though this book seems a bit more scattershot than some of the author's previous ones, it leaves no doubt that Bode knows what concerns YAs and how to speak to them through books. The subject here is peer relationships--friendly and not. The young people whose words she has collected relay their concerns seriously and frankly, and, as is usual in Bode's books, they come across as distinct, real kids--angry, confused, happy, not always articulate--sometimes all at once. Topical issues--teen pregnancy and drug use, disability, homosexuality, even sexual harassment--are woven into the testimonies (in fact, it seems nothing's been left out), and Bode has tried to change the pace with some interview-style segments. Teens looking for answers won't find things spelled out here: Bode eschews glib assessments about behavior and morality. What she offers is simply food for thought, presenting it in appealing voices that kids may feel sound tremendously familiar--almost like the voices of people they know. Stephanie Zvirin

From Publishers Weekly:

The format of Bode's latest is familiar: a series of first-person accounts from different young people. Unlike the author's best work (The Voices of Rape), this collection never coheres around a central topic, reading instead like a compilation of too-good-to-throw-away leftovers from her previous books. While all of the 18 monologues here in some way discuss relationships with friends and enemies, the dominant subjects are chiefly other, darker issues. It's hard to see how the theme of "trust and betrayal" relates, for example, to a 16-year-old boy's story about falling in love with a 28-year-old woman he meets on a computer chat line. Another's discussion of his violent temper (caused by drugs prescribed for, variously, an attention deficit, stunted growth and mood swings) is principally about wrestling with personal demons. Frequently heart-rending, these pieces offer more than Bode's title implies. Ages 12-up.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Laurel Leaf
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0440220351
• ISBN 13: 9780440220350
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 176