Seen and Heard: Teenagers Talk About Their Lives [Hardcover]

Mary Motley / foreword by Sam Shepard Kalergis (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1998

Seen and Heard is an uncensored look into th e very private world of the American teenager. It shatters t he prevailing stereotype of uncommunicative kids with a face -to-face look at 50 teens who explain what their lives are l ike in a series of interviews. '

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Part of what is hard about being a teenager is that it seems like you're alone with your feelings and that no one else has ever worried about, hoped for, or dreaded the same things in the same, painful way. Struggling teens (and parents who can't get their kids to talk to them) will take comfort in these first-person stories from young people. Mary Motley Kalergis (Mother: A Collective Portrait and With This Ring: A Portrait of Marriage) photographed and interviewed 51 young Americans representing a wide spectrum of interests and experiences for this enlightening book. They include a farmer's son and a recent immigrant from Mexico, kids from small towns and the daughter of famous parents. There are poets, baton twirlers, football stars, and skateboarders. Yet, presented by Kalgeris' sympathetic lens and pen, these seemingly dissimilar subjects reveal that there is, perhaps, a universal mood to the years between childhood and maturity: heartbreaking earnestness. Given the opportunity, even the most rebellious of the book's subjects admits he lies awake worrying at night, because he is "getting a little bit scared" about the future. "I want to be as fearlessly honest as I can while I'm alive," another of the interviewees declares.

This book would make a terrific tool for opening communication between adults and young people. As playwright and actor Sam Shepard says in his foreword: "This generation of kids may simply be more honest and courageous than the one I belonged to during my adolescence." Surely this is reason enough to find out what they're thinking. --Maria Dolan

Product Details

• Hardcover: 128 pages
• Publisher: Stewart Tabori & Chang; First Edition edition (September 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1556708343
• ISBN-13: 978-1556708343
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 9.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #763,059 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Intelligent, poignant, and to the heart . . ., February 20, 2000

By 

Node Rogue (Decatur, IN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Seen and Heard: Teenagers Talk About Their Lives (Hardcover)

"Seen and Heard..." is a book that every adult should have to either remind themselves of what it is like to be a teenager or to be able to take ten steps back and help them evaluate/relate with their own children. This book gives an intelligent and insightful look into the drama of the life and thoughts of American teenagers in this particular generation.

This book will not teach parents about how to be better parents, but it does express many different viewpoints about being a teenager in this diverse culture of ours. The comments offered by the teens in this book are intelligent and razor-sharp, running the gamut of the emotional spectrum. Very metaphoric, their comments along with the stark black-and-white photographs carry the emotion home to the reader to embrace.

This book is a very nice package which makes an otherwise unreachable time for most adults come alive again, or, better yet, realistic again.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars INSPIRED Reading...Truly A Gift to Society!, October 31, 2005

By 

BeadMoonStardust - See all my reviews

This review is from: Seen and Heard: Teenagers Talk About Their Lives (Hardcover)

Seen and Heard...The title speaks to the content, which Mary Motley Kalergis welcomes from these ordinary/extraordinary Young People. I bought this for a dear Young Person in my life and began reading it when I got it home, prior to mailing it...What PROFOUND insight I was granted! What these children have to say will astound you with its depth, clarity, vision, and stark reality. Every voice illuminates a perspective worthy of considering. Each of them resonates with a sense of WHO they are--even as they question uncertainties about themselves and their futures--WHAT they know, HOW they see the world around them and all its beauty, hypocrisy and potential. Mostly this book is a testament to the LIFE of the generation now in our midst as young adults. They are an astounding 'addition' to a society that is destined to benefit from their outspoken, sincere sharing of what they believe.

This is beyond 'Required' reading...It is inviting, 'Inspired' reading...for anyone interesting in connecting on meaningful levels, and certainly for Young People looking for peers without the pressure...even ones they might never meet in their daily living experience.

Brava Mary!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars thank you mary., February 11, 2004

By 

Genevieve "like she said" (Fairfax,VA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Seen and Heard: Teenagers Talk About Their Lives (Hardcover)

As a particpant in the book, I was honored and grateful to have my story chosen to be shared with America. The experience was a wonderful carthartic one and allows me to have a published transcript and picture of exactly who I was at age 14, a person I am so different from now at age 20. Mary Kalergis has the wonderful ability to draw out things from people with her photographs, to divulge the deepest secrets of their hearts with her lens, to lock a single moment in time with one shot. Seen and Heard is a true snapshot of what it was like to be a young American growing up at the turn of the 21 century. I will treasure my signed copy forever.