When a Good Girl Does a Bad Thing

Jayne Thompson, the protagonist of Susan Colebank's first YA novel, is on top of things: she's valedictorian of her junior class and she's a star on her tennis team. But on top of things isn't always that great. Her mom, a local TV reporter, is more concerned with appearances than reality; her younger sister, a diabetic, is completely irresponsible (and Jayne is pressured and counted upon to cover for her, make up for her, do things for her); her dad, while nice, seems out of touch.

And Jayne never complains out loud. But what she does do, as a knee-jerk reaction, is run a red light.

That one instance results in the death of a young girl, the sister of a "mean girl" at Jayne's school. Jayne suffers terribly for her actions--her grades drop, she isolates herself, she shuts down.

Things change when she is sentenced to a year of community service at Outreach Arizona. Jayne initially seems to be headed down a dangerous path: drinking, a tattoo, a piercing, but all of that is part of Jayne finally finding herself, rather than who others want her to be.

I liked this novel and think that teen girls would relate to it, especially those like Jayne (I was kind of like her) who are under tremendous pressure from a parent to be what the parent wants.

The book would work well in a unit on chances/second chances. Students could also read Looking for JJ and We Were Here, for example, and talk about the juvenile justice system and what seems to be fair/unfair punishments.

Could You Survive?

How could/would you handle:

not having
a) your mp3 player or ipod?
b) your ipad?
c) your cell phone?
d) your computer?
e) internet access?
f) TV and radio?

It would probably tough for most of us (including me) to think about losing 1-2 of these, but what about all of them?

You could do it?

What if you lost:

g) running water?
h) electricity?
i) natural gas?
j) coal?
k) sunlight?
l) gasoline?
m) food?

It's hard to imagine.


Losing all of this is what Susan Beth Pfeffer explores in her 2006 book Life As We Knew It, the first in a trilogy. Told in diary format by Miranda, an average teenager living in Pennsylvania, from May 7 until March 20, the story takes place sometime during GW Bush's presidency [Pfeffer lets us know her political views through characters' negative comments about Fox News and the former president (evil jerk)].

At the beginning, everyone is excited: a meteor is set to crash into the moon. It's a festive time, with everyone outside waiting to see the big event. Then, something went wrong. The astronomers were not accurate about the angle of impact. Suddenly, the crash bulleted the moon closer to the earth. Almost immediately, the world felt the impact: tsunamis that wiped out the coastline and cities of every continent; then earthquakes; storms; volcanic eruptions.

Everything was chaos. And then it got worse. The ash blocked out the sun. Crops died. The weather changed. People were starving, including Miranda's family. This goes on for months and months.

I loved this book and can't wait to read the next two. I think that while girls would like the book more than boys, there certainly is enough in here to interest everyone (Miranda has two brothers, one older and one younger). While there is nothing "evil" like in Lord of the Flies or the Gone series, this book is a nice connection.

This book would also work in a cross-disciplinary unit with both science and social studies.

I loved this novel and can't wait to see what its sequels are like.