Laurie Halse Anderson’s breakout book, SPEAK, has a new 10th anniversary edition coming out, and Lenore (from Presenting Lenore) and Steph (from ReviewerX) have been doing an awesome series of posts in its honor. And now they are giving away 20 free copies!
Here’s what I wrote about SPEAK (spoiler alert!!!):
As boys get older, they usually stop reading about girls. For progressive parents hoping to raise thoughtful boys, I recommend Speak. The narrator is a severely depressed high school senior. As the story goes on, chronicling the small absurdities of high school along the way, we piece together that the cause is a date rape that occurred several months prior. In an interview with author Laurie Halse Anderson included in the book’s “platinum edition,” she says that she has heard from dozens of young men who liked the book but were surprised that someone would have such a strong reaction to a rape. It’s a good reminder that in the absence of stronger social movements affecting what people grow up knowing, literature can play a role in telling stories that need to be heard.
Seriously, if you haven’t read this book, you totally should. And if you have, Lenore and Steph’s posts have been a great celebration of it (they do a very good job of articulating the things I liked about it so much); you can find their whole series at the link above.
-->Feed me text
