THE TRUTH ABOUT TRUMAN SCHOOL

It all begins when Zebby quits the Truman Middle School Bugle in protest over the newspaper advisor’s refusal to let her say anything negative about the school. Zebby and her friend Amr then put together an alternative website: www.truthabouttruman.com. After the site catches on with the popular kids, Zebby and Amr are off and running, writing critical articles and publishing comics and opinion pieces by anonymous students. Events take an unfortunate turn when someone begins adding malicious posts regarding a popular girl who was once a friend of Zebby and Amr’s, and things get worse when she is untruthfully outed as a lesbian. Told from multiple perspectives as a compilation of the points of view of all involved, this is an exercise in ethics and morality, particularly pertinent given the power of the Internet. Though sometimes a bit pedantic, this is a realistic portrayal of the negative influence of bullying, cliques, and peer pressure as they might affect tweens inside and outside the online world. (Fiction. 10-13)