It's Your World--If You Don't Like It, Change It: Activism for Teenagers (Paperback)

by Mikki Halpin (Author) "There's more to being a teenager than dating drama, shopping, and video games..." (more)
Key Phrases: bully box, comprehensive sex education, dating violence, New York, United States, Martin Luther King (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal
Grade 9 Up–Animal rights, racism, war protest, AIDS, school violence and bullying, women's rights, and promoting tolerance are among the topics covered here. Halpin provides basic information about each one and then makes myriad suggestions for action at home, in the community, the "five-minute activist," etc. The ideas are easy to implement. Each section is accompanied by authentic accounts of student experiences, including successes as well as difficulties, in trying to change their school or community or influence a world issue, such as the war in Iraq. Many of the ideas are easily doable–in school violence the suggestion is made to set up "bully boxes" so that students can anonymously and comfortably report incidents of harassment. The discussions end with an annotated list of Web sites, books, and movies while the book concludes with a seven-page resource list for general activism. This is an important book that will empower any young adult who would like to make a difference.–Joanne K. Cecere, Monroe-Woodbury High School, Central Valley, NY
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Gr. 7-12. With a wealth of practical detail and hands-on, up-to-date information, this chatty resource will be in demand by teens who want to become activists. The issues are of crucial interest, encompassing everything from the environment, war, civil liberties, and racism to gay rights, birth control, and women's rights. Each chapter includes how to get involved at home, at school, and in the community, and in compelling sidebars, individual teens speak out about their activism and, sometimes, about the harassment they experienced because of it. Halpin states clearly, "Don't get involved with anyone who is breaking the law," but she is just as adamant about the legal right to protest. Unfortunately, there's some careless editing (thet for they, etc.); the colloquial style occasionally seems to trivialize (Gandhi is "famous for his fasts and good works"); and sources for some crucial statistics are absent. But for the many teens who see basic rights under threat, this is an important resource. Halpin's suggestions, coupled with the Web sites and hotlines in each chapter, will help kids make a difference. Hazel Rochman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Young Adult
  
• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Simon Pulse (August 10, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0689874480
• ISBN-13: 978-0689874482
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #289,792 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Richie's Picks: IT'S YOUR WORLD, October 12, 2004

By	Richie Partington "http://richiespicks.com" (Sebastopol, CA United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

"We can change the world,
Rearrange the world,
It's dying--
To get better."
--Graham Nash, "Chicago"

"Every year in America, more than four million companion animals are needlessly put to death in shelters."

"A full-time working woman [in America] earns only seventy-three cents for every dollar earned by a man."

"On average, an American high school student hears twenty-five anti-gay remarks every day."

Don't like something that's going on? Then change it!

I was joyed to help ferry our budding tenth grade activist and a group of her peers out to the rugged ocean coast recently to take part in a Clean Up Day. There is nothing as a parent that I'd like more than to see my kids grow up to be people who are trying to make this place better. Katie is now the same age I was when I participated in a high school clean up project on the first Earth Day.

And I was living back there on the East coast when, on a summer Southampton morning in 1976, I wandered into Neil's house. Arthur was already there, and our favorite radio station, WPKN, was cranked up on the stereo. But when I walked in that morning, Arthur was all teary-eyed as he began blubbering over and over to me, "They just can't do that! They just can't do that!"

It took twenty minutes of listening to 'PKN before they repeated the announcement that had unhinged my friend: The Board of Trustees of the University of Bridgeport had decided to take active control of "our" radio station and turn it into an NPR affiliate.

Because I was (am, and forever shall remain) an activist/troublemaker/pain-in-the-butt, I told Arthur that he needed to immediately write letters in protest. And to this day I still cannot understand the response by Arthur which was to do absolutely nothing but moan and mourn. No matter what I said, I could not get him to write even one simple letter.

But I did.

I wrote to Congressman Otis Pike and told him that WPKN was a unique and vital source of alternative news and commentary for his constituents, and that the source was about to be silenced.

A few days later the announcements of the impending change at the station ceased without fanfare or explanation. I then received a written response from Congressman Pike which included a copy of the letter sent to him by the head of the FCC who, at the Congressman's request, had inquired of the University what was going on with the radio station and was told that, oh no, nothing was going on.

A year later, as an antinuclear activist, I had the opportunity to visit the WPKN studio to speak on the air about solar energy and conservation technologies. I brought along the letters that Congressman Pike had sent me, and was treated like a prince by the station manager when he saw that letter. He told me that he had never learned why the Trustees had abandoned their plans as abruptly as they had adopted them.

And thus I learned that one young person can make all the difference.

"Right now in the United States, twenty-six percent of the population is under eighteen. That's more than seventy million people. Imagine what it would be like if you and everyone around you got to tell the world what you think. Don't wait until you're old enough to vote to take action. Starting today, starting right now, you can make your voice heard on the issues that matter to you."

IT'S YOUR WORLD--IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT, CHANGE IT is both a blueprint for creating massive numbers of teen pains-in-the-butt and a resource manual that provides the information teens need to go out and change the world. The book is compiled in a teen-friendly format with dozens of success stories penned by teen activists set on the outside edge of the right hand pages, side by side with the nuts and bolts (and websites) that provide the necessary tools for kids to instigate their own changes at their homes, in their schools, and out in the real world.

The book is divided into sections on Helping Animals, Fighting Racism, Saving the Environment, Ending War, Fighting the Spread of HIV/AIDS, Stopping School Violence and Bullying, Defending Women's Rights, Protecting Civil Rights and Civil Liberty, and Promoting Tolerance Toward Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Questioning Youth. There are annotated book lists, organization lists, and piles of ideas that can be utilized immediately.

I don't expect that a large percentage of the book's young readers will grow up to be the nutjob that I've long become: A long-haired fanatic who'd happily tell preschoolers why he didn't eat "dead, chopped up animals," who always conned his own kids into choosing subjects like Ruby Bridges, Gandhi, and Rachel Carson when they had to do a report for school, who still stands his ground on drying clothes on a line in the sun and refuses to own a dryer, who has stood with a sign on a hundred street corners actively and vocally supporting peace, Project Billboard, alternative energy, gay marriage, Choice, gun control, affirmative action, school libraries, No Name Calling, a Skateboard Park for our community's kids, and probably has a decades-long FBI file to prove it all. (The book tells you how to obtain a copy of that file through the Freedom of Information Act. Yes, I'll be submitting my request shortly.)

IT'S YOUR WORLD--IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT, CHANGE IT, ACTIVISM FOR TEENAGERS will be music to the ears of teens who are disturbed about the state of affairs that confront them in their lives, and are under the mistaken impression that there is nothing they can do about it. And since "Being a Teen" is more often than not synonymous with "Being Disturbed," this book theoretically has quite a large potential audience.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Power to the people, September 14, 2007

By	Constant Reader "J Guinness" (Cincinnati, Ohio United States) - See all my reviews

I'm glad to see a book like this available for teens, because it's never too early to teach Americans that they have the power to resist. For most my life I felt powerless, but my feelings changed in 2007 when ordinary folks like myself used letters, e-mails and phone calls to stop the all-powerful federal government from giving amnesty to 12,000,000 illegal aliens. So I recommend all teens read this book and learn how to legally fight the government and protect their rights; because if you won't fight for them, the politicians will cheerfully take them away.

5.0 out of 5 stars Change is Good, February 19, 2007

By	Joyce L. Bogusky "book lover" (PA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

In a world filled with fear and uncertainty, teens need to get involved in stopping the violence, fear and global destruction. This wonderful book allows teens to get involved in saving their world step by step in a good, non-violent way.