Sones, Sonya. 2001. What my mother doesn't know. New York: Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers. ISBN: 9780689841149.
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This is a free verse poetry book about a young teenage girl, Sophie, trying to find the right boyfriend. During the course of the book, her various relationships through the year are mentioned, but all are lacking, as she searches for the "perfect guy" that truly makes her happy. This is a real "coming-of-age" story about a girl as she discovers for herself what "growing up" is all about, from the changes in her body, to her distant and confusing relationships with her parents, and to discovering how to set physical boundaries in her relationships with her boyfriends.
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This story also mentions a very serious subject that every kid on the Internet needs to very aware of, and that is "meeting" someone in a chatroom, and having a cyber-relationship. At one point the guy in the chatroom wants to meet Sophie, but through their final conversation, she realizes that some of the things he is saying are not "sounding" just right, and using her head, she immediately discontinues the cyber-relationship, and changes her e-mail address. This is a definite conversation item that all teenagers need to have with parents or trusted adults. It is a scary cyber-world, and this situation could have had deadly consequences. Hopefully readers will notice Sophie's "mostly" correct actions in this story, and they will remember it if they should ever find themselves in this situation.
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This book is serious, dramatic, and laugh-out-loud funny at times! Sophie really struggles with trying to figure out the difference between love and lust, and that can be very confusing sometimes. Sonya Sones uses free verse poetry as a means to tell the story, and each poem depicts different elements of Sophie's life, from Art class, to being at the movies, to shopping for a dress to wear to the dance, her New Year's Eve experiences, etc. It is all very clever, a fast read, and something that I think teen girls are really going to enjoy.
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One of my favorite poems in this story is:
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Oh, Man
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I probably
shouldn't have let him
hold my hand.
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What if it
gave him
the wrong idea?
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I hope
he doesn't think
that I like him now.
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I mean
I do like him,
but I don't like him.
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You can just see in your mind's eye the thoughts going on in Sophie's mind. She is so tormented at times of how to handle developing relationships.
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The whole poetry story boils down to, "What do you do when you fall in love with the school geek?" Sofie knows how wonderful he is, but what do you do about all that peer pressure of how the school kids already classify him? This is very tough on her, and it is interesting to see how she handles this. I was very close to the end of the book, and worried about how Sonya Sones would end the story. I was so afraid that I would be disappointed, but I liked the ending as well. ~
This is a great story for a "Girl BookTalk, complete with lots of comfort food. There are so many issues, both serious and silly, but I would so love to have a circle of girls discussing it, and hearing their thoughts about it. It would also be interesting to see if they have the same kinds of questions about life, love, parents, and relationships, that Sophie has. I would also like to hear if they enjoyed the free verse poetry style of the story, of if they would have preferred to have it in a prose style. Teenage girls have strong opinions, and I am so curious to see if they would feel the same way that I did after finishing the book.
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I personally loved this book and I wanted it to continue. I want to know if Sophie and her new "love" really make a go of it, or if that peer pressure does affect her adversely at some point. I am a sucker for this romance, along with all of the attached teenage hormonal issues!
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