Tag Archives: Child Abuse

I Never Asked You To Understand Me By Barthe DeClements

Stacy didn’t look like a reject, and I didn’t think I did either. We were just having too hard a time… I have reviewed a number of Barthe DeClements’s books over the past few years, starting with the not-quite-Lost Classic … Continue reading

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Checking In With The Imaginary Summer Book Club: The Burning Bed By Faith McNulty

(Click here for information on the 2021 edition of Molly’s Imaginary Summer Book Club Featuring Classics of Women’s Literature.  This week, the first selection The Burning Bed By Faith McNulty) Is it a sign of the times that we’re finally … Continue reading

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Mary Jane Harper Cried Last Night By Joanna Lee and T.S. Cook

Rowena Harper is a rich, spoiled, and emotionally disturbed young mother who can’t cope with the problems of raising her child. That’s why…. I mentioned this title in passing in the review for Willo Davis Roberts’s Don’t Hurt Laurie, but … Continue reading

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Baby-Sitting Is A Dangerous Job By Willo Davis Roberts

I could have never predicted what would happen next… Background: Willo Davis Roberts was one of the more prolific writers toiling away in the YA/Middle Reader vineyards of the 1970s and 80s, authoring YA Romances (3 titles in the Sunfire series), social-problem books … Continue reading

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To All My Fans, With Love, From Sylvie By Ellen Conford

For Sylvie, movies weren’t just stories. They were a way out. A few years ago I reviewed Conford’s And This Is Laura, and recalled it as pleasant, but largely unremarkable. So I was surprised to find Sylvie a much more sophisticated piece of work, … Continue reading

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Prank By Kathryn Lasky

How can the words of the past give Birdie hope for the future? Well, this another one where the cover-copy barely matches the actual content of the book: it’s sold to readers as being about a high school student who … Continue reading

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Wrapping Up The Imaginary Summer Book Club: Carrie By Stephen King

(Click here for information on the 2016 edition of Molly’s Imaginary Summer Book Club Featuring Classics of Women’s Literature. As all of the four selected titles have filmed adaptations, we will be looking at the movie versions as we go along. … Continue reading

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Veronica Ganz By Marilyn Sachs

“Peter Wedemeyer, Peter Wedemeyer, I’ll get you, Peter Wedemeyer!” So, this is one of those books where you think you know exactly what you’re going to get, then it turns out to be something completely different, and then it still … Continue reading

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Don’t Hurt Laurie! By Willo Davis Roberts

Laurie’s been keeping a secret for as long as she can remember, a secret that she’s afraid to tell anyone else… Willo Davis Roberts was one of the more prolific writers toiling away in the YA/Middle Reader vineyards of the … Continue reading

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The Boy Who Drank Too Much By Shep Greene

YA fiction of a certain vintage that attempts to tackle topical issues tends to do so in very black-and-white terms: if you have premarital sex, you will get pregnant and ruin your life; one puff on a joint (or as … Continue reading

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