From: Toni Buzzeo <buzzeocyll>
Date: Tue, 09 Jun 1998 17:17:20 -0400

My fifteen year old son, Chris, just served on a panel discussion of "dark" YA literature at the Maine Library Conference. The session was incredibly popular and all feedback was positive. All of the librarians in the audience (myself included) appreciated the chance to hear kids' take on the books under discussion. One of the titles was SMACK.

I read Kathleen's questions to him this afternoon and his response was:

"Teens identify with both Tar and (definitely) Gemma at the beginning of the book but Gemma becomes distasteful for a bit when she first starts associating with the squatters. After that, Gemma as an individual is less significant than the Gemma-on-heroin character, so her personality becomes less important."

Chris, a voracious reader of YA and adult literature, loved this book.

Toni Buzzeo, MLIS Longfellow School Library Media Center Portland, ME
Received on Tue 09 Jun 1998 04:17:20 PM CDT