Pages: 151 Price: $12.95 ISBN: 9781845900755
Alana's Advice is a fictional account of events in a middle school, during the final two weeks before the start of summer vacation. Alana, the protagonist, writes an advice column for her school newspaper and her friend Jackie is a contributor to the paper as well. They conflict with the editor, their classmate Jane. The story follows Alana's frustration with Jane's behaviors and her triumph over the petty scheming, jealousies and fights. Alana's advice is to be both smart and compassionate in responding to bullies. The ability to take the perspective of the bully and recognize their challenges helps turn Alana from a target into a friend.
What makes the book exceptional is the age of the author. Alana's Advice is a very mature piece of writing for a twelve or thirteen year old. The author is either incredibly insightful about conflict resolution or a resourceful writer. The story itself mirrors much of the research literature on the impact of strong and authentic relationships with friends, family and adults, in building resilience in adolescents.
The structuring of each chapter with an anecdote is engaging. Yet it is hard not to be somewhat skeptical about the sudden turnarounds and role reversals in the characters. Things rarely turn around that fast in school settings. The sub-heading of "Where there is a clique" also is somewhat misleading because the book is mostly about interactions with one girl, not a clique. This character, Jane, is represented as vengeful, mean and authoritarian. She is also described in sensory terms: smelling of make up and chemical products. By the descriptions provided in the book it is unclear whether Jane is actually powerful or widely loathed or possibly both. Jackie remains a sidekick most of the time with few insights of her own. Moreover the story telling itself is not consistent. Some pages were tedious in the descriptions and never quite as engrossing as they could be, possibly because the reader never actually feels much compassion for Alana. The book also has grammatical and typographical errors in places.
The girls and in fact, all the students at this fictional school seem Caucasian and somewhat indistinguishable in the descriptions of their appearance. The setting of the school and the various activities of the students imply privilege and a higher socioeconomic background. Many of the specific references might not be relevant for children outside of this demographic.
Despite these shortcomings the book is a valiant effort and its true test will lie in whether the advice, the writing style and the content are meaningful and relevant to Alana's peer group. Teachers could use the book to encourage discussion and self-expression surrounding interpersonal challenges and bullying in middle schools. The author's age can be another point of discussion and whether a peer's perspective is more meaningful to students than that of an adult.
MSU is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Institution