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
Potentially useful insights for youngsters encountering loss.
Advice on coping with loss, from the death of a family member or a close friend to a beloved pet’s demise to life-changing events such as divorce.
Imperi, a chaplain and thanatologist (“someone who knows about death, dying, grief and loss”), uses her own terminology to distinguish between “deathloss” (“when a person or an animal we love dies”) and “shadowloss” (“the death of something, not someone”). These categories make sense, but kids grieving the death of a loved one may find it difficult to wade through sections about other serious problems. Although the recent pandemic caused many actual deaths, this book describes Covid as a shadowloss, a disrupter of normal life. Imperi mentions a few religious traditions, but the book is primarily concerned with practical ideas and individual experiences. Specific thinking, writing, and creative exercises for moving through the grief process are included. She spotlights five diverse teens, along with their coping strategies for different types of loss; they appear to be composite portraits rather than real individuals. The black-and-white line illustrations and charts throughout will appeal to some, but the boxed affirmations on many pages may feel repetitive to others; the work overall feels a bit like an expanded magazine article. Still, patient readers will likely find guidance—and reassurance.
Potentially useful insights for youngsters encountering loss. (grief journal, glossary, note for caregivers, resources, references, index) (Nonfiction. 11-14)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9781525309656
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Kids Can
Review Posted Online: Aug. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2024
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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