Alt Ed - Hardcover

Catherine Atkins is a teacher as well as a writer. She has taught in alternative education programs for the past ten years, working with students of all ages, from elementary level to adults. Most of her teaching experience, however, has been with teenagers. "I enjoy working with teens," Atkins says. "They have it all: the curiosity and vulnerability of children, the blossoming intelligence and awareness of their age, and surprising empathy and maturity, sometimes when you least expect it." She especially enjoys helping students improve their writing skills. "I have given my 'How to write a five-paragraph essay' lesson to many teens over the years, and it's always a joy to watch their faces when they realize they CAN do it, they can write an essay, when they never believed they could before." Catherine's background includes stints as a news reporter and talk-show host. She loves animals, art, and theater. At the age of four, she appeared in a nationally broadcast Pepsi commercial.

copyright © 2000 by Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers. All rights reserved.

Grade 8 Up-Susan Callaway is a painfully self-conscious sophomore at Wayne High. Constantly teased about her weight, she has no friends. Her longtime nemesis, Kale Krasner, is a slow-witted bully whom she suspects is behind the harassing phone calls she's been getting. When she meets openly gay Brendan Slater in the school library, she makes friends with this fellow outcast, and together they surreptitiously deface Kale's pickup truck. This act of vandalism lands them both in a new 12-week, after-school group led by the head guidance counselor and designed as an alternative to expulsion for six students with serious infractions. Meeting in a stuffy trailer, the Alt Ed group, bound by confidentiality, also includes a football player, a popular cheerleader, a tough girl, and Kale. In short chapters, these teens begin to talk, but honesty and trust come hard in a group divided by social status, homophobia, ugly rumors, sexism, and intolerance, and it is sometimes hard to differentiate personalities with so much heated dialogue. With Alt Ed discussions so frank, argumentative, and sometimes downright rude, Mr. Duffy gently tempers the tone, and the sharing of feelings gradually helps to build respect and understanding among members. When the group ends, all six teens are stronger-even Kale shows signs of rehabilitation. Although the novel features the popular themes of adolescent self-acceptance and belonging, Atkins's attempt to address so many teen issues feels diffuse and contrived and doesn't fully succeed.
Susan W. Hunter, Riverside Middle School, Springfield, VT
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