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Parenting
2 part question for you as a parent
1) have you ever read the book "Go ask Alice" - if not do you know the content and what it is about
2) Would you expect your 10yr old to bring it home to read from her teacher's classroom library??
your response is appreciated!
This discussion has been closed.
Re: 2 part question for you as a parent
1. Yes.
2. ?No. ?Are you there God it's me Margaret? ?Sure. ?Go ask Alice...Um a little heavy for 10.?
I looked it up on amazon
1. I have not read it or ever heard of it to be honest.
2. Reading the synopsis(sp?) of it, I would not be too keen on my 10 year old reading it.
The teacher has it in her classroom?
Ditto this.
i teach 4th grade and my kids turn 10 in 4th grade. i would not have this book in my library...middle school maybe. perhaps the teacher used to teach older grades and just has it mixed in her collection?
1. Yes.
2. What grade are you in @ 10 - 3rd 4th? If so then no. I know they read it in middle school in the distrct I teach, but I think it is a bit heavy for a 10 yo.
ok... she is in middle school as of this grade.. this teacher only has this class for this school year..i.e 10yr olds in her 5th grade class..
Her response to parent was along the lines of "I have donated books in my libraray, while I try to get around to reading them all, I haven't read this"
Yes, but is has been a LONG time. Is that one about drug abuse?
Regardless, I remember it being WAY too old for a 10 year old.
I read a LOT of stuff that wasn't?necessarily?boxcar children when I was younger, but if the TEACHER hasn't read it, I wouldn't give it to the student. ?
The only way I would send that book home with a 10 year-old is with a note saying, "The subject matter covered in this book may not be appropriate for all children. ?Please read and use your discresion for YOUR child. ?If you do choose to share this book with your child, I ?encourage you to read it together so you may discuss the content at your comfort level." ?Or something to that tune.?
Oh hell no...
Plot summary
When she begins keeping a journal the diarist, the daughter of a university professor, is an ordinary, insecure, middle-class suburban teenager preoccupied with boys, diets, and popularity. Her fortunes take a sharp turn for the worse when her family moves to a new town and she finds herself less popular and more isolated than ever before. Unhappy in the new town, she is overjoyed to be allowed to return to the old town to spend the summer with her grandparents. During this stay she is invited to a party by an old acquaintance; there she unwittingly ingests LSD that had been added to random bottles of Coca-Cola and distributed to the party guests as a game. The other guests had mistakenly assumed she was aware of what the "game" entailed. After this first unwitting, but pleasurable experience, she seeks drugs deliberately, and rapidly proceeds to marijuana, and amphetamines. She describes her drug experiences intricately; the more extreme the supposed diarist's drug experience, the more sophisticated and descriptive her writing becomes.
A pregnancy scare and the return to her new town encourage her to turn away from drugs; however she soon willingly falls in with the drug crowd where finally she finds acceptance. She starts dating a drug dealer and sells drugs to grade-schoolers for him. After realizing he was using her (she returns to their flat to find him in bed with another man), she turns him in to the police and runs away from home with her new friend Chris, moving to San Francisco. She and Chris have to find jobs. After being given heroin and then being raped by Chris' boss, Shelia, and her boyfriend, she and Chris run away to another part of San Francisco, where they open a boutique. Despite the relative success, they miss their family and decide to go home.
She is welcomed back warmly by her family, but finds herself ostracized by the community and has difficulty keeping her resolve to avoid drugs. She soon weakens and, while high, runs away again. She spends time living on the streets, a period during which her diary is not dated and entries were purportedly recorded on scraps of paper or paper napkins. She finds herself having sexual relations with strangers and loses track of everything. In a moment of lucidity she realizes that she needs her family, and that realization finally gives her enough courage to ask a priest to help her return home.
When she returns home she vows to stay completely off drugs, and succeeds, even without the support of Chris who has now moved away. However, she is again ostracized by her former friends, who continue to label her a police informant, and is ignored by the "square" kids. She starts a new romance with a student, Joel, at her father's university. While babysitting, she is drugged without her knowledge. She has a bad trip, during which a neighbor locks her in a closet when she becomes violent. She badly injures herself trying to claw her way out and she is committed to a psychiatric hospital. After being released, she returns home, finally happy and over her drug addiction. She gets her life back on track and finally makes the decision to stop keeping a diary.
An editorial note informs readers that three weeks after the last entry, the diarist died of an overdose. Although it is unclear whether the girl's overdose was accidental or premeditated, or what drug or drugs specifically prompted her death, the key issue is that this girl ? whose life the reader has followed in intimate detail ? was just one of the thousands who died because of drugs that year.
After what Brewster posted, I'm not sure I'd be comfortable with my 14 yo SD reading this, let alone my 10yo SD.
Greeeaaat! I ran upstairs to as SD (14yo) if she had heard of it or read it. She hadn't, but wants to now. I suck at this parenting thing sometimes.
Ha! ?It's like all the banned books, the kids want to read :-) ?I forgot how much was in that book, and I guess for SOME 10 year-olds it could be a good "warning" book, but if my 10-year-old picked it up, I'd be a little miffed. ?I thought 4th-5th graders were reading the wimpy kid books or being daring by reading Harry Potter. ??
1. yes
2. wouldn't bother me...i don't really believe in censorship
1) No, and yes.
2) 10 - what is that 5th grade? 4th? I don't know... it seems a little like it might be heavy reading, but I started reading trashy romance novels at a younger age. And a lot of other books that most people would consider inappropriate for my age.
I'm just not overly keen on telling kids what they should and shouldn't read. If my child came home with a book I was unsure about - I would read it too and have an open discussion with them. I just can't be a hypocrite and say that I would be freaked out since I started reading very adult books at a young age.
Puh-leeze!
THIS 5th grader read Danielle Steel, Julie Garwood, Jude Deveraux and all sorts of nasty things, LOL! No wimpy kid books for me. 
1. yes I read it in the 5th grade
2. I wouldn't expect it but I don't necesarily think that it a bad thing. Kids are often curious and experimenting with things so early nowadays. I think that book has some good info in it that may help facilitate a talk about drugs and sex.
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Ditto on all of this, but then again I was reading VC Andrews and Danielle Steele in 4th grade.
And yes, I have read "Go Ask Alice." I vividly remember being in 8th grade, getting the book from my teacher and reading it for extra credit. I didn't really understand most of it (the drug stuff was way over my head at the time) but it still made quite an impression on me. Sure, I'd be very surprised if my 4th grader brought it home from school, but not necessarily upset...just surprised.
It's just in the room, right? She's not making your child read it? It is also in her school library so I'm not sure what the difference is to you.
Personally, if my child wanted to read it, I'd read it right along with her and discuss it with her.
I think a lot of us (myself included, and I need to get better at this) want our kids to be innocent so much for longer than they are. If you wait to expose and inform your child of the world around her, it will be too late.