Alt Ed

Susan Callaway is a high school girl who is the brunt of bullying and shunning since she is quite a bit overweight. She is accused of helping to damage a person's truck and the school requires her to attend a series of group sessions where students who have violated various rules will try to work out their problems rather than being expelled from the school.

It turns out that the boy whose truck was damaged is himself one of the members of the group. They all have their own problems and their own stories, and she must learn to speak out in her own defense, at the same time actually listening to the problems of the other students, trying to understand both herself and them better.

There's a lot of tension in the group, of course, and not everything goes smoothly. Still, it is interesting to see into the lives of the "troubled" students and how they are not really inherently "bad" people after all. It's just a shame that schools today almost never have real "counselors" who will listen to student's problems and try to help them as happened in this story. Perhaps if school psychologists were finally brought back some students who really needed help to avoid ruining their lives would receive the help they need in time rather than just being left out in the cold on their own.

A good book that raises some concerns about today's schools.

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