Customer Reviews

No Easy Answers: Short Stories About Teenagers Making Tough Choices

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As an eighth grade teacher I am always interested in good short stories that are appropriate for young adults. I enjoy reading to my students and No Easy Answers proved to be one of the most powerful collections of short stories that I have ever read. My students loved it, and many of them chose to read it on their own. These stories are not only well written and representative of the diveristy of our country, but also pertinent to the tough issues--teenage pregnancy, first love, lonliness, parent-child relationships and homosexuality--that are confronting our children today. If you are a parent, teen, or teacher who is looking for a book that makes you think and confront these types of issues then this is definately the book for you. I highly recommend it.

Given the recent trend toward violence with teenagers, this book provides a powerful discussion piece in the middle school classroom. The stories in this collection all have characters who face difficult moral delimmas. This can spark many classroom activities where students determine the best course of action. This gets young adults talking about character, taking responsiblity, and choosing the right path. Furthermore, the high interest level of the stories hook even the most reluctant of readers! It was hard for anyone in the room to put down.

This collection of short stories does indeed bring to light various moral dilemmas. However, the content is highly inappropriate for middle school students because of the graphic references to voyeurism, "penile enlargement", and other sexual content. There is no doubt that kids at this age may be exposed to some of this- but not to the extent of the descriptions in these stories. The stories will make students very uncomfortable and not because of the dilemmas so much as these references; parents will definitely oppose this as well. My suggestion is read the book first before selecting it for this age group.

I read this book in less than a day. The stories were really realistic, and they're things that real teenagers face in everyday life. All the stories are by different authors, and I liked how they put a mini-bio after each of the stories to tell about that author's most famous books that had won the most prizes, etc. It helped, because if there was a story I really liked, then I could get the book with the longer version (most of the stories came from a book the author had written). It was an awesome book.

This book is fantastic. OUr school library got it and I thought that I would give it a try. It was amazing. The stories are great and you just don't want to put it down. You have to read this!

The book is pretty good, but it is NOT appropriate for a school setting. I purchased it in hopes that it would have real world short stories that my high school students could better relate to, but it only had a few that I could share with my kids. It is a very good read, but just deals with the real world, which we aren't necessarily encouraged to teach.

This book is a great book about teens dealing with tough issues. It touches on many issuse that teens deal with every day, such as teen pregnancy, drug use and abuse, not knowing how to handle. The fact that it is written as a group of short stories makes it that much more appealing to a younger audience.

If you are looking for a book that deals with tough issues in an appealing manner than I would highly recommmend this book to you.

There's a story in this anthology called "Wishing it Away," which is so addictive even the most reluctant reader will be at the edge of his/her seat, begging for more. Most of these stories are "sure things." I recommend them for 9th grade, especially.

My son is 13. He is very picky on what he reads or he would not read at all. I decided to get him compilation of short stories. One of them is this book. He really surprised me. He could hardly put this book down. He gets up early in the morning even on school days to spend some time reading the book before getting ready for school. I highly recommend this book for those young adults who rarely read. It got my son reading for hours!